There we were, crying, hugging each other, while the other kids stared, pointed and snickered.
I was in the seventh grade, geeky, unsure of myself, constantly fighting with my alcoholic father, one moment feeling sorry for my mother, the next disgusted for her lack of self respect.
The one constant in my life, the one person that was near that I knew loved me unconditionally and showed it was just diagnosed with cancer. My mom, being more the child than the mother, just heard the news at the hospital where Ma had just gotten out of a surgery to remove a hernia that had bothered her for years. She drove immediately to my school and walked in crying uncontrollably and found me by my locker.
"She's just full of cancer Linda" she managed through sobs.
As I put my arms around her to console her, I felt the air leave my chest, and the fear take root.
"What?" I said barley audible.
"She's full of cancer, she's dying. She's going to die." She said loudly through tears and the snot running down her face.
I felt helpless. I felt smaller than I ever thought possible, I wanted to turn inside out and disappear, leave when she left, the one person I knew that loved me could not leave me... what would I do? Who would want me? Who would be there for me? Who would CARE about me?... my thoughts raced through my mind coming faster, spinning, I wanted to run.
The sound of snickering brought me back.
I looked around, I saw the laughing faces, the rolling eyes.... and I cried. I cried with my mom and let the hot tears sting my cheeks without moving to wipe them away. I had to get out of here, I had to get my mom out of here.
She never complained you know.
She went through a couple of years of chemo, but did not complain. Not through the vomiting, the hair loss, the massive weight loss, nothing.
We never painted our nails anymore.
I spent more time at her house than my own, mostly to escape my father. She knew it, and always tried to let me know that he was the bastard, it wasn't me. We would talk about everything, and nothing, and sometimes just sit together in silence, or like any typical teen I would veg out at the movies on TV.
One summer day she was at the kitchen table sewing. I walked in, and there she was, hands deformed by arthritis, her body brittle and small, ravaged by the ever present cancer, and she was grasping the cloth the best she could ripping out the seems she had just sewn in, as the tears rolled down her cheeks.
"Ma?... can I help you?"
"I just can't get it right, my hands don't work right anymore."
"Ma?.. can I help you?"
"No.. I need to do this. It has to get done."
"You're making more dish towels? You don't have to make those, we don't need anymore, or we can buy some."
She was sobbing softly now "I have to get these done I have to do it."
She wouldn't let me help her, and I was angry that she wouldn't just stop, I couldn't understand why she wouldn't just stop doing it, there was no reason for it.
She was moved to a nursing home later that year, and I visited only a handful of times.
It was too hard for me. It was too hard to see her like that, I wanted to remember her lively, silly, joking, laughing with me... not that hollowed out shell lying in pain on the nursing home bed. The last time I visited her I told her I got a great part in the one act play.
Me.
It was too hard for me.
She died there, while I was out celebrating Easter with my new escape, my new person I thought would love me my boyfriend whom I latched onto with everything I had.
It was too hard for me.
Years later, as I was at my wedding shower and the last gift was passed to me to open, I read the card.
"To Linda"
-"Love always, Ma"
As I tore open the wrapping paper I saw the dish towels that she had pushed herself to finish....she worked through the pain in her hands and body..... and my tears fell.... and I thought with regret, and shame, and pain that it was too hard for me.
I love you Ma.... Miss Ella Sophia Peterson... I am so sorry.
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