Back in April I wrote about a dear friend, MMom, who is suffering from lung cancer. MMom is the mother my best friend of more that 21 years, NotDonna. MMom is an amazing woman, mother of 6, grandmother of 8 (with another on the way), who has spent years caring for and nurturing her large clan and numerous friends who have joined the pack along the way. She has been the central grounded point and voice of reason in the chaotic world around her.
She is a wonderful, kind, funny, and amazing woman. And she is loosing her battle. It is absolutely hearbreaking. She has developped lesions on her brain and has lost touch with reality. NotDonna recently made the cross country trip to spend the holidays with her only to find out that MMom likely has less than two weeks left. There will be a large hole left in the world after this.
We will be making the trip Monday to be with NotDonna as well as to visit with family and friends for the holidays. It will be a trip punctuated with emotional extremes. We will be seeing family and friends we've missed for months; we will be going out to old haunts, celebrating Christmas/Yule and New Year's; but I will also be spending as much time as I can with NotDonna.
I cannot imagine the pain she must be feeling right now. Just the legal complications of her situation running through my head are enough to drive me to distraction. And these are factors of which NotDonna is acutely aware, all mingled with the incomprehesible pain of watching a mother who has been like her best friend suffer and slip away before her eyes.
I know all I can do is be there for her. Listen and be present and help with what I can. It kills me that I can't make her pain go away. That I probably can't lessen it even a bit. To be powerless to help my best friend, who I've known for more than 21 years, who I've stayed in touch with constantly as we both moved around the country, through hard times and good. The best friend who can always make me smile. It's maddening to want so badly to ease this pain and know there is little I can do.
But that little I can do, being there for her, I will do. My thoughts and prayers are with MMom and NotDonna, and soon I will be there physically as well.
And any of you out there who smoke, I implore you to STOP. In this age, I don't understand why anyone would do it anyway. I know mothers who openly risk putting their children through this hell, who expose their children on a routine basis to these chemicals (including Punky's BioB*tch who smokes like a chimney around Punky and even did while she was pregnant, ugh!). And I know three people who, at this very moment are dying of lung cancer. All of them are parents. All are wonderful people who will leave great holes in this world.
Trust me, I know how hard it is to break addiction. But think for a minute about what your children will go through watching you slowly and painfully slip away before your time and ask yourself if it's worth it.
She is a wonderful, kind, funny, and amazing woman. And she is loosing her battle. It is absolutely hearbreaking. She has developped lesions on her brain and has lost touch with reality. NotDonna recently made the cross country trip to spend the holidays with her only to find out that MMom likely has less than two weeks left. There will be a large hole left in the world after this.
We will be making the trip Monday to be with NotDonna as well as to visit with family and friends for the holidays. It will be a trip punctuated with emotional extremes. We will be seeing family and friends we've missed for months; we will be going out to old haunts, celebrating Christmas/Yule and New Year's; but I will also be spending as much time as I can with NotDonna.
I cannot imagine the pain she must be feeling right now. Just the legal complications of her situation running through my head are enough to drive me to distraction. And these are factors of which NotDonna is acutely aware, all mingled with the incomprehesible pain of watching a mother who has been like her best friend suffer and slip away before her eyes.
I know all I can do is be there for her. Listen and be present and help with what I can. It kills me that I can't make her pain go away. That I probably can't lessen it even a bit. To be powerless to help my best friend, who I've known for more than 21 years, who I've stayed in touch with constantly as we both moved around the country, through hard times and good. The best friend who can always make me smile. It's maddening to want so badly to ease this pain and know there is little I can do.
But that little I can do, being there for her, I will do. My thoughts and prayers are with MMom and NotDonna, and soon I will be there physically as well.
And any of you out there who smoke, I implore you to STOP. In this age, I don't understand why anyone would do it anyway. I know mothers who openly risk putting their children through this hell, who expose their children on a routine basis to these chemicals (including Punky's BioB*tch who smokes like a chimney around Punky and even did while she was pregnant, ugh!). And I know three people who, at this very moment are dying of lung cancer. All of them are parents. All are wonderful people who will leave great holes in this world.
Trust me, I know how hard it is to break addiction. But think for a minute about what your children will go through watching you slowly and painfully slip away before your time and ask yourself if it's worth it.
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