For my Mom #29

My mom left this world fifteen years ago today after a relatively short bout with cancer. It came on quickly, the treatment was brutal and to be honest, she wasn’t the same from the first moment she received chemotherapy.

We lost the woman that we knew early on. She became very ill. Everything about her changed and while we clung to hope that she would beat a 30 percent chance survival rate, everything we saw told us she would not.

Looking back on it, I believe that she knew. From the start, I think that she knew it was worse than we did and did not tell anyone. It would be her way to want to protect us.

After she left one of the doctors told us that it had spread to other areas of her body including her brain. That explained so much, especially that she seemed “gone” to all of us for most of the seven-month ordeal. It was heartbreaking to watch.

I’ve said before that my mom and I connected on things spiritually and discussed them from time to time. We told each other things that had happened to one another. Shortly after she left, I started getting little visits from her in dreams. (I’ve talked about those in previous posts). They are quite amazing actually. If you get a dream visit, you will absolutely KNOW it.

There were not a great number of them – two or three maybe but one became significant without me realizing why until a few weeks later. In this dream I was working. Still at Dillard’s at the time. It was Holiday time; I was very busy in the fragrance department at that particular moment being pulled in several directions when I heard my name. I looked up and there she was.

She looked radiant and beautiful. Everything else in the dream sort of faded into the background. She just stood there smiling at me with a look of reassurance. I said to her, “You’re here!” She continued to smile and say yes back without saying the words. I knew.

I awoke from there with a peace that I carried for several weeks – even telling a close friend at work about it. She reminded me of this dream just a few short weeks later when my son Brian left this world in a car accident. Of course, all of my peace was shattered at that time, but it made us both stop for a moment and wonder…

It made so much sense that she came to tell me that she had it. If it had to happen, she was there. Like a mom, she was there. I know to this day, she has me, she has him. So, on this day, I miss her as I always do, but I remember that while missing physical presence is a huge part of loss no one can take away the love. That, you get to keep.