September Wind

I can feel the September winds blowing in, filled with intoxicating memories that swirl around me, pulling me to that place of remembering moments I ache to experience once more and moments I never want to revisit.

Her birthday was in September. She turned fifty in a hospital bed, smiling as she ate a piece of my famous peanut butter cream pie...laughing carelessly with Pastor James (who incidentally, if I recall is among the two people in the whole world that did not profess my pie as the most wonderful thing in all the land!!). I was wishing she didn't have to endure the treatments much longer. She was determined to continue fighting.

I remember the day they said the word cancer. Actually, the oncologist spouted off a thousand other unrecognizable words. The kind of words that doctors use when they don't really want to tell you the findings. Words are easy to hide behind.

So, I finally said, "Are you saying she does not have cancer?"

"No," he said. "I am saying she most certainly does have cancer."

We walked out of the room, after she promptly told him that she would make him famous when she beat this cancer. He pulled me aside and said, "I need you to understand. It's not good. What we're dealing with...It's very serious...it's bad."

I guess it was easier to tell me than to look into her determined, beautiful eyes and say those horrible words. I appreciated his honesty, though. From the places I've walked, I'd rather know what I'm dealing with head-on. Once you know that you are not invincible...once you know that it's possible to lose someone you love...it's kind of always with you. That possibility.

I acted strong, nodding to the doctor, smiling at my mother. I felt the room start to spin, as I struggled to steady myself. I thought, "If I could just get to the bathroom before anyone notices." I barely made it inside the door, when I collapsed against the wall, my body shaking with the sobs of a helpless little girl...not the strong woman of faith who had been carried more than once through the sea of grief by her loving Savior. But, a little girl...whose mother was filled with a hideous disease that would steal her health, her body, her mind, and her life...but couldn't kill her spirit. The sea of grief swirled around me, taking me captive with swells of images from other times when death's darkness stood mocking me...as he threatened to steal the ones I love. I resisted crying "NO" from the depths of my soul as the memories washed over me, "I'm sorry there are no heartbeats...they're gone"..."a condition known as Potter's Syndrome"..."incompatible with life"...and, now..."cancer...it's not good...very bad". I cried out to God, begging him to spare her...to spare all of us. The sorrow had it's way with me in that oncology office bathroom. Then I wiped my tears and walked out, stunned to face a life that held that ugly word.

She had "cancer of unknown origin" that they think possibly started in her lungs. It had spread to her lymph nodes, her brain, her bones...it was everywhere! They said she had two weeks to six months. Two weeks? I couldn't even process that. Thirteen months and tons of chemo and radiation treatments later, she sat in that hospital bed on her fiftieth birthday, lighting the room with her smile.

Growing up, we had a tumultuous relationship. I was so head strong...always wanting to establish my independence. I spent most of her life missing all of her gifts and her beauty...all of the things about her that made almost everyone who knew her fall in love with her. She had that kind of gift about her. She was so beautiful that people were held captive by her, even after the cancer treatments left her bald and thin as a rail. Didn't matter. She glowed with beauty. I spent most of her life missing it...but when that word was spoken, everything between us disappeared. All I could see when I looked at her was the person God created her to be. All of the barriers between us tumbled helplessly when that word was spoken, and we could hug and laugh and share our hearts. As often happens, there were precious gifts, even in the face of such hideousness.

A few weeks after her birthday, we made the trip we had taken so many times down river road...the one with all the big beautiful, extravagant houses. She had one picked out on that road. Only, hers was a little cottage with some hanging baskets on the porch. She always did prefer the simple things in life. The leaves were a myriad of colors, exploding with the majesty of fall as we drove the winding path to the hospital for a visit to the ER to help manage her pain. It was just a "routine" pain management visit. We should have gone home later that day. We made jokes in the ER and giggled. I looked over and she was out cold...resting from the medicine they had given her. I felt the relief a mother feels when her baby is resting, knowing that she was not in pain at that moment.

They decided to keep her in the hospital over night. But it soon became clear that this time was not like all the others. She wasn't making sense and could barely wake up. When she did, she seemed like a little girl. I realized that I couldn't leave her in the hospital when I saw the condition she was in the next morning. She stayed for three days, and our very large family surrounded us as we tried to make sense of what was happening to our mother. In and out of consciousness...barely coherent. Where had she gone? I was just talking to her hours before. I can't describe to you what transpired next. The memories overwhelm me.

All of her doctors agreed that the next step was to take her to the Hospice Center or a nursing home. The cancer had spread throughout her body and it was only a matter of time. They said, "Maybe 48 hours." We had promised her that we would not put her in a nursing home, so we reluctantly chose the Hospice Center, thinking that it would probably only be a few days. We decided right away that we wouldn't leave her alone. So, we stayed there with her...sometimes all together, sometimes taking shifts. The Hospice people were amazing...and we are so grateful for their compassionate care.

Forty-eight hours turned into four weeks. For four agonizing weeks, she suffered in a way I never knew it was possible for a human being to suffer. We didn't sleep, except for a couple hours here and there when we would collapse out of exhaustion and then we would awaken in a panic. I sang to her, prayed over her, read scriptures...as I've described before. What I haven't described is the depth of suffering she endured. And I won't...I can't. Only the ones who were there can understand what it was like. All I can say, is that it shook me to the core...trembling the very foundation of my faith. There were, of course, glimpses of joy in the midst of sorrow and gifts...even in the pain. She would awaken sometimes and we hung on every word, when she was able to speak. We never wanted to leave...desperate to soak in every moment we were given with her...and wanting to be there, when she was finally carried Home.

I won't lie...I begged God to take her Home. The suffering was so much...and I couldn't bear to see her in such agony. But the moment she left us, I realized that her leaving left us without her. And, the missing came. The missing was like nothing I ever thought possible, either. And, if anything, it has intensified with time. Every September - October, when the leaves change and start to fall, and the fall winds blow...the missing washes over me anew...and the memories flood my mind. I even resist sometimes...wanting to just keep my eyes on Jesus and rest in His comfort...wanting to just enjoy the land of the living. But, almost involuntarily, my body reacts. I can't sleep in September and my heart aches with the missing of her so deeply, I am overcome. The memories flood my mind. The sights and smells and feelings of fall all bring with it that time.

I walked into her house this afternoon to let out her dog (which we do for my stepfather every afternoon), and the ache was stronger that I could contain. I felt suddenly so desperate to see her sitting on her couch. It's been three years, and I don't know when I'll be able to walk into her house and not feel disappointed that she isn't laying on her couch. I walked through the house, stopping in the kitchen as I remembered the feeling of "home" when we would stand there, laughing about when we were kids and the silly things we did. We would tell stories in the kitchen. I washed countless dishes in that kitchen (those who have known me a long time always laugh, because it seems I'm always doing the dishes...and have been since they've known me!) I thought about how if she were here, she would laugh at my "teaching Timothy to drive" stories and annoy me as she told him the stories of "teaching me to drive when I was 16"! I can't explain to you the bittersweetness of those memories or the depth of the ache. I can't explain how it feels to stand in the kitchen of your childhood home and feel like your "home" is no longer. It disappeared with her. But, if you have felt that kind of missing...if you have lost someone you love like that...someone who was your constant...your definition of family, you know.

There are so many things that a mother fills in our lives. Sometimes I wonder where she begins and I end. So much of our mothers are part of the person we become. You know, you can't really brag about your kids to anyone but your mother. No one else gets it, cares, or loves them like she does...like you do. She would love to hear about Timothy going to the Homecoming Dance, and James scoring a goal in soccer. She would be excited to hear her grandson's name on the radio for having the lowest round of golf. She would relish it and wallow in it like Grandma's do.

For the rest of the time I walk this earth, something...someone will be missing. Several someones. Eventually that is true for all of us, and I know that. We will all lose someone we love. I also know that there is comfort in the arms of our heavenly Father...that one day, we will see them again. One day, I'll laugh with my mother and hold my babies. I know, until that day, His grace is sufficient and He will carry me...I know all of that. But, right now...I'm just aching with missing...swept into the memories of a September wind.