August 5, 2012

I got to spend a nice lunch with my parents and my aunt in the park.  Mum seems to still be very ill, very tired.  She hasn't started the chemo yet.  I'm worried that she has already given up.  I made a joke about when she gets better she wouldn't get to have me as a slave anymore and she sadly shook her head and whispered, "I'm not getting better."

I want to shake her and yell "YOU CAN'T THINK LIKE THAT!  YOU HAVE TO FIGHT IT!"  But how do you do something like that?  How do you bully someone into believing they won't die.  You don't.  I want to cry and beg her not to think like that, but how is guilting her into it going to help?  It's not.  Frankly, nothing is going to work.  The reality is she has a slim chance of survival and she knows this.  No amount of "Pollyanna-sunshine-all-the-time" bullshit is going to make her believe otherwise. 

Yet, we all know if you believe you are going to die you will.  And I don't want it to be that way.  I don't want her to believe she will die and then give up.  I want her to believe she can beat the odds.  I probably am repeating myself on here over and over...but I have to make her see that a slim chance is still more than no chance at all.  And I need her to use that as the one lifeline to keep her from letting go.

I really want a day without tears.  I want to not cry every time someone asks me how she is doing or what her diagnosis is.  I want to not feel so selfish about how I am feeling when I know full well that what she is feeling is ten times worse than this...I feel like Jell-O...I feel like this is something I will have to do alone.  My brothers have significant others, I have 2 cats and a cynical world view, doesn't really keep you warm at night.  Nor does it hold you tight so that as you cry so hard you think you are going to fall apart they can be the one to hold you together.  And each night, that is how I feel...like I am falling apart and there is no one to pick up the pieces.