did she know she was dying?
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Did she know she was dying? This is what I asked myself as I stood beside her holding her hand one final time. Everything happened so quickly. What we thought started as breast cancer spread to her entire body and through it all she remained the most positive I had ever seen her. She talked about when she would be going back to work and the things we would do when she got out of the hospital. She searched for the flyer from the newspaper to show my Father the chair she wanted when she got home so she could sit outside. It broke my heart because I knew she would never get a chance to sit in that chair.
As I held her hand I was unable to say anything but "I love you, I love you, I love you". I wanted to tell her so much but I didn't want to let on that she was dying. Maybe she didn't know. Maybe she was peacefully going off to another place and I didn't want to scare her. Maybe I just did't want to say the words out loud for myself.
In between hospital visits mom was home for a short amount of time. She was there, but not really there. You could see the pain on her face and it broke my heart to see a person who was once so filled with life struggling to take each breathe. After she passed my brother found on her iPad that she had googled 'Lung Cancer'. I wonder if there was fear inside of her as she read the results. Did she know then that she was dying?
Mom was a trooper right up until the end. She was more worried about us than she was about herself. "You can't be spending all this time here" she would say to me "you have things to do". I refused to leave her side, spending long hours in the hospital chatting, watching the housewives, and giggling about past memories. "This is why you have a girl" she told the nurse as I was washing her hair in the sink. "My son would never do this for me". I remember how terrified I was washing her hair. I had no idea what I was doing and I didn't want to cause her anymore pain. My dear friend eased my fears telling me to just have fun with it. "This will be a memory you will cherish" she said, and she was right.
This Sunday will be the one year anniversary of my mom's passing and those days of being in the hospital with her feels like a lifetime ago, and yet I cannot believe that she has been gone a year. Time is a tricky thing Sometimes flying by in a blink of any eye and other times feeling like it is dragging on.
As I go about my days I see signs of my mom all around. I feel as if she is watching over all of us and it brings me comfort to know that she is still near. I still wonder if she knew she was dying or if she was just being strong for us, the way she always did. I know I will never know the answer but I like to believe that she didn't know. I like to think that she passed peacefully thinking about going back to work and spending time with her family. We never really know what is next for all of us, and maybe just maybe she didn't know she was dying.
