| My Mom died of cancer. Reading "being mortal" was helpful for me. In my case it wasn't particularly unexpected, she had previously been diagnosed and gone through treatments. The bout previous to the one that killed her had been difficult. She got through about 2/3rds of the chemo and told everyone that was it, either she died or she didn't but she didn't want to do any more chemo ever again. That was very hard to hear but I know for me the way I thought about it was tangled up in the parent/child relationship. I was blessed that she and I could talk about pretty much anything, and so we talked about her cancer and her choice to die if it came back. It was hard to hear but I think got to the point where I could see her side of it. She lived another 7 years after that. When it came back she was ready to go, and while I don't really think I was ready to let her go I could reflect back on our conversation and the times we'd shared and take some comfort in that. It is a painful and stressful thing and you will get through it. But as with anything you will be remade into a different person by the process. It's okay to be angry at the world but know it isn't your fault or their fault (I said some horrible things to my Mom early on about how her smoking was to blame etc etc and was lucky to have been able to work through that[1]) Let her know you love her and support her efforts to get past this. So many more cancers these days have let people continue to live their lives longer than they would have. All I could do for my Mom was to be present for her, to listen to her, and to let her know that she had done well and I was glad to be her son. It's what I as a parent hope for my kids as well. [1] Is smoking a cause? Sure. Is obesity? yup that too. But living your life is also a death sentence (good perspective from the book here on that) re-litigating your past choices when you're facing a situation doesn't change anything except make you angry. Accept the emotional release and moving on is so very hard, and so very important. |