The Waiting Game and a Face to Face Meeting

Life is a game of waiting; waiting to grow up, waiting to get out of school, waiting to get married... but, the waiting becomes more pronounced when you introduce cancer into the mix. You wait to go to the doctor, even though you instinctively know something is wrong, simply because you are frightened to learn the truth. You wait for the results of the tests, and then wait for the doctor to tell you some kind of prognosis, which is never specific, always generalized. You wait for the medicine that you need to be ordered, wait for your first appointment, wait for the chemotherapy to drip into your body and kill the good cells as well as the bad. You wait for your hair to fall out, you wait for your hair to grow back in, you wait until the chemo has had time to have some effect before they can even test you again, wait for those results, wait to hear you are in remission, wait to hear that the cancer is back, wait, wait, wait... wait to die. You can always wait to die.

Waiting is torturous for me. I have never been a patient person, and can't ever sit still for very long. I want to know it all. I want to have the facts, to research the issue, to affect some change in the situation, to act. So, for me, waiting for my mother to come to Great Falls for the first time, and to meet with the oncologist, made for several of the worst days of my life. I wanted to know the facts, from someone other than a doctor in the sticks in Montana, and I wanted to know exactly what kind of cancer we were dealing with, and what was the plan. That word again, the "plan". Realistically, I knew that no matter what specific type of cancer it was, it was fairly hopeless anyway, because the cancer had spread so far already. Still, I wanted to know all the facts, to hear some type of prognosis, to be presented with some type of timeline so that I could properly respond with my own plan of action.

More so, however, the waiting was terrible simply because I wanted to see Mom in person, to hold her, to hug her, and to tell her how much I loved her, how much I would miss her. That was my plan anyway, or my dream. I envisioned this emotional, dramatic meeting where we would rush to each other, and cry together, and say all the things we never were able to say to each other. We would have the type of relationship I had always longed for, because sickness can change a person, can't it? Doesn't dealing with one's own mortality tend to change a person? It did for me, immensely, but then, I had survived, so maybe that is different. Still I had hope that my mother's illness would somehow change her, too.

The truth of the matter is that my mother, whose love for me I never questioned, was not a touchy-feely type of person; never was, even when I was little. I don't ever remember sitting on her lap. I faintly remember sitting beside her reading poetry, but never on her lap. I never slept in her bed, or snuggled her on the couch. She was proud of that, and actually sort of "lorded it over me" in regard to my sons and their tendency to come into my room and sleep with me, which I have always encouraged, and enjoy, and miss now that the older one has outgrown it. My mother would always hug me to say hello, and hug me to say goodbye when I would leave to go back to college or back to wherever it was I was living, but she rarely ever even touched me most of the time. There are many pictures of her with her arm around me, but that was for the picture, not a normal occurrence.

She did have an annoying habit of petting me when she was talking to someone else about me; she would run her fingers through my hair, or pat it gently while she talked about me. I hated it, and told her so, but she thought it was funny, and if Mom thought something was funny, even if she was the only one to find it amusing, she would do it; anything for a laugh. That was Barb. She was a funny lady, always witty, always finding a way to make others smile. So, for her, physical contact wasn't necessary unless there was some need for it, like in order to make a joke on someone, or for a group picture. It wasn't that she didn't deeply love the people in her life. She just preferred to probe a person's mind and personality, rather than their physical being.

She was a bright woman, and a great conversationalist; she loved life, loved to laugh, and read voraciously. She was incredibly emotional about many things, but she buried it when it came to personal matters. She would cry at movies, books, even the occasional commercial. She would cry at any wedding, even that of a complete stranger; she would cry when she was happy, or when she was sad, or when someone would surprise her with a really personal gift. One time, I gave her two framed photographs I had taken for Christmas: one of her two brothers, and one of her son, whom she hadn't seen in a couple of years. She opened the one of my brother first, and proceeded to cry, and almost wouldn't open the other for fear it was of me, and it would make her cry again. Because, she hated to cry about herself, or show her own emotions. She rarely ever let them show, and when she did, when they would well up in her beyond her control, it would anger her. She would get this look of determination on her face, and clench her teeth, and force them back down again, and then change the subject.

She had done this to me on the telephone. During our second conversation after diagnosis, at a lull in the conversation, I had started to cry, and I blurted out, "I don't know what I am going to do without you." She didn't respond. I couldn't see her, but I knew what face she was making, and she said nothing. Then she changed the subject, telling me when her appointment would be, and when to expect her. Stupidly, I thought that I would be able to tell her these things in person, that she wouldn't be able to change the subject because we would be face to face, and so I waited. I waited to see her, all the while anticipating what I would say to her when we were finally alone, when we could finally have the conversation I had longed to have for an eternity.

She arrived the day before her appointment, and got out of the van with her two little dogs, and came walking up to the house, just like she had many times before, but something was different. She wouldn't look at me. She wouldn't really make eye contact with me. She gave me a cursory hug, and came in to sit down in the living room, and proceeded to tell her husband, Paul, where to put stuff, and tell me what to do with the dogs, and tell the boys hello, but she wouldn't really look at me. I played along, because I knew she would not want to talk about it, particularly in front of my husband, and my kids.

She was very fearful of what her illness would do to the boys, because they were very close, particularly with my younger son, who was only four years old at the time of her diagnosis, and with whom she had always had a very close bond. He sat on her lap all the time, and they would read or watch a movie together. I was proud of her for that closeness, because my son is a very physical child, and I don't think he gave her much of a choice - he was on her lap from the day he was born, and loved every minute of it.

The diversions of the boys, and husbands continued until late that evening, after supper was finished, and the boys had been put to bed for school the next day. I learned from my mother that she had gone into the hospital to have her lung drained, but that they had botched the job, and poked her too high up in the lung to get much fluid, and that it had been so incredibly painful the first time, she had refused to let them insert the needle a second time. So, she was still not breathing well, and was choosing to sleep on the recliner in the living room instead of laying in a bed, as she was more comfortable that way, and didn't cough as much. Actually, she usually slept in the recliner when she came, a habit she picked up when my boys were babies, and she would come and lay in the recliner with them in her lap and they would take long, wonderful naps together. She was a good grandmother, and more physical with my boys than she ever was with me, for which I am thankful.

We discussed when her appointment was the next day, and when her sister, Gail, would arrive from Texas, and who would pick her up from the airport. Gail, upon learning of the diagnosis, insisted on coming to Great Falls for the initial meeting with the oncologist, which was a blessing, as I couldn't have gone through this ordeal without her. The only thing of a personal nature that my mother said to me was that Paul was a mess, as was her brother, Gary, and that she couldn't handle it when they broke down on her, and that I was going to have to hold them up, because she couldn't. That was it. I started to cry, and she got this disgusted look on her face, and looked away, and clenched her teeth. She just couldn't have that discussion, she couldn't say what I needed her to say, and she couldn't hear it from me. It wasn't necessary. She knew what it would do to all of us, she knew that her death would be the hardest thing in the world for me, she didn't need me to articulate it. She couldn't hear it, wouldn't be able to read it, would never be able to entertain that discussion. That one time, that one instance was the only time we ever got close, and it was gone in a flash, in an instant.

I think, maybe, that her opinion was always that one was supposed to live each day with that love and companionship, so that it was never questioned, so there was never a need to actually address it. She always felt that if the love was always implied, it need never be implicitly spoken. She always told me she loved me at the end of a telephone conversation, and when saying goodbye at the end of a visit, but it was always in passing, and never with eye contact, as that would be too personal. She never needed for me to tell her what she meant to me, never, ever wanted me to say it, she couldn't take that emotional swell, couldn't hold back that wave of pain and love that would well up in her. She was afraid it would drown her, I think. She never liked being out of control in that way. The clenched teeth, and the averted gaze said it all.

So, I swallowed my emotions, as I had countless times in my life, particularly during puberty, and I said, haltingly, "I love you. Good night." Just like she wanted, just like I always had, in passing, no eye contact, just those words, simple, short, sweet, and to the point. I went to bed, and softly cried myself to sleep, just as I had on countless other occasions in my life, for many, many reasons. I just laid there, tears streaming down my face, running off my nose, dripping onto my pillow, as I came to the realization that there would be fewer and fewer times that I would be allowed to even say those few words to her, and that one day, it would be over, and she would be gone, sooner than I would like, and that I would never be able to say to her all the things I longed to say, because no matter what, she was going to be Barb to the very end, and she would never allow me to bare my soul, not to her. One day, I will write a book about it, and I will tell all. A book she will never have the chance to read. It's probably a good thing, as I would never be able to convince her to sign the release anyway. One day...