O Mother, Where Art Thou?

About a week ago, my sister, Crystal, called me.
It was early in the evening and I was in the middle of reading some bedtime stories to my youngest children.

"Hey Brigette.  Listen, did you get mom's email?  Now, don't freak out, okay...." she breathed into the phone.
Instantly my heart began to hammer in my chest, my palms began to sweat and I began to freak out.

"What now??" I whined letting the children's book I was holding fall away from my grasp.

"It's mom.  She's been undergoing a series of tests over the last few weeks...."

Over the last few weeks?  What, you mean the last few weeks when she has been babysitting for me? When she has accompanied me on appointments?  When she has listened to me whine about how many times I barfed and then patiently sat there while I go into graphic details about each barf session?  Who folds my laundry when I hardly dare to?  Who has said nothing about any health concerns during all this time.....??

Back to the phone call and my sister.

"It seems that mom has been diagnosed with cancer..."

There's that word again.  That stupid, life-sucking word....

"....it's Stage 1 Endometrial Cancer."

"Oh man," I breathed.  Can our family really handle another cancer hurdle?  I remember feeling like a giant weight was pressing down on my chest.  Mom, sick?


Will you allow me to digress?   Oh goodie.....get some tea and crumpets!

Once upon a time...about 38 years ago...I met this lovely woman.  She had brown hair and blue eyes and the softest hands.  She was a wonderful woman who loved to laugh, go walking and have fun.   She was not afraid of my screaming temper tantrums - even when I held my breath until I turned blue - and held me when I cried and cried and cried in infancy.  She was one for adventure and would often take me and my siblings camping even if my dad could not be there because of work.  She loved to read us stories and would spend hours doing just that.  One day she let us colour her face with crayons while she slept and this only became awkward when she forgot her colourful facial and answered the door later on in the day.  She always had time for our grievances and gave the best back scratches.

Skip ahead to school days.
Each school day, my siblings and I would come home to tea, snack and chat time.  Mom would ask about our day and we would pour out our thoughts, problems, annoyances, irritations while she listened.
She drove us to hockey practices and games, swimming practises and meets, track and field and cross country practises, karate, figure skating, gymnastics, piano, rugby, synchronized swimming, catechism class.........and I don't remember her ever complaining....

Skip ahead to University days.
Each day, I remember being so busy with reading, essay writing, studying, reading, reading, writing and reading....
Mom would come into my room with a giant mug of coffee or tea and a snack.
"How's it going?" she would ask, massaging my knotted shoulders for a minute or two.
"Ugh.....!" I would dramatically sigh....."I have so much to do!"
She would leave quietly with the promise to check up on me soon.

Skip ahead to boyfriend years.
Me sobbing on mom's shoulder.  Me asking for advice.  Mom listening.  Mom offering her thoughts.
Mom wedding dress shopping with me when Paul and I were engaged.

Skip ahead to teacher years.
Every year, mom would join me before school began and would help out in my classroom.  Cutting out things.  Putting nametags on other things.  Sharpening pencils.  Arranging desks.

Skip ahead to marriage and baby years.
Me calling mom.
"Waaaaaaah.....I can't be a mom!  It's too hard.  The baby keeps on crying...."
Before the conversation is even over, mom is in the car.
"I'm coming, Brigette.  Hang in there."
A short while later, mom enters my home.  Usually with a box full of groceries, coffee and a snack to go with coffee.  She would take the wailing infant and order me to bed.
"You sure?" I would sniffle as I shuffled off to my beautiful beautiful bed and collapsed in a heap.
Mom would take said-wailing infant on a walk and do all my laundry and be tidying something before I awoke.
"Thanks, mom!" I would say when I woke up some time later feeling slightly more human than before.

Skip ahead to me being diagnosed with cancer.
"Hi, mom.....so I think I may have cancer.  Paul and I find out tomorrow.."
Before the conversation is over, mom has promised to babysit while we go to the appointment, to make dinner for that night and to help out in any other way that she can.
When she arrived, she had a smile pasted over the anxiety on her face.
"I have pie!" she bravely declared through tears threatening to fall, "and wine."
I remember quirking an eyebrow: What sort of party was mom hoping to throw?


Skip back to that phone call with Crystal.

"So mom had been going through a lot of tests and the doctors have discovered she has Stage 1 Endometrial Cancer."

"What does this mean?" I asked through a deep dread settling in my chest and tears beginning to streak down my face.

"It's stage 1 so that is good.  The doctors think that with surgery she should be okay.  She shouldn't need chemotherapy or radiation."

"Okay."

"And she emailed all of us kids."

"Emailed...." I said flatly, "Why wouldn't she call us?"

"She doesn't want to burden us especially with what has been going on lately...."replied Crystal.

Burden us?  But hasn't that been what I have been doing all these years to her?  Burdening her with my blue-faced tempers, my need for taxi services, my demand for advice and back-scratches, my whiney phone calls about crying babies?

O Mother, where art thou?  You have always been there.  For me.  For my siblings.  We may not have always seen eye-to-eye but you have always been there.  Usually with food.

After my phone call with Crystal, I contacted my parents and told them I was coming down.
To see them.  To hug and kiss them and cry with them.  To pray with them and ask God to guide us through this time.  To be with them.

Because their news is not a burden.   Mom's news is not a burden.  She did not make a choice to have this happen to her.  She would have preferred to have this happen AFTER some other of our family's trials were all dealt with but this was not God's plan!

So I will strive to rise up and meet her with life's newest challenge.

Mom, we can be a mother-daughter-cancer-couple and share inside cancer jokes and experiences.  Maybe I can point out my favourite medications and we can convalesce together ruminating on the good old days when we had all our body parts.

Either way, mom, you are not a burden.  Let me, let all your children surround you with love and care and coddling.  We can scratch your back.  We will be there to return the loads of love you have given us over the years.  And we're bringing some food!


"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."  Isaiah 55: 8, 9