Spelling Bee

I have definitely been tested this week.  My writing has been tested.  My craft skills.  My patience.  My work ethic.  My parenting has been tested.  And I feel like, sadly, I'm failing miserably for the first time in my life.  I have no patience.  I'm angry.  I'm depressed.  I'm lacking.  I have no where to turn.  It's not like the old days where Mom would quiz me, relentlessly, on my spelling words while brushing my hair until I got every one right.  There's no quizzes, and, there's no mom.

Most people don't realize who my mom was.  They either only knew her before cancer, or after.  Typically, those who knew her before she got sick disappeared afterward because the struggle for recovery was too hard.  Too scary.  Too much effort.  It took too much time and patience.  No one has that kind of time in today's bustling society.  No one except her kids and her husband.

But then again, we didn't have a choice.  Well...at least I didn't.  I was just a baby when she got sick.  Besides a few angry rants about how messy my room was, I really only remember her sick.  Many of the memories are horrible; gruesome even.  A child really shouldn't see the fight against cancer as intimately as I did.  But, sometimes, life isn't fair.

I saw it all.  The seizures.  The ambulances.  The doctors.  The months and months in a hospital bed.  The scars.  The balding.  The chemo.  The pain.  I saw my mother try so hard, and still, against all her will, forget my name.  Her baby.  How does a mother forget her baby's name?  Life isn't fair.

I was lucky, though.  I was lucky I had no other options.  I was forced to sit by and help re-teach my mom the alphabet.  I was able to read to her.  And, even through the child-like mentality that she was left with, I was able to get to know my mom.  The same way all young girls do.  I asked her for advice.  I shared too much about boys.  I asked her about her life.  I cried on her very welcoming shoulder.  And she was always there for me.

While many didn't come around as often, my mom disproved many of the old ideas I had of her.  I remember her being angry.  She would yell.  Throw dishes.  Tear apart my room if it wasn't cleaned to her liking.  She put a smile on for everyone else, but it was sensitive and corporal punishment for the kids.  And it's true.  She was a top notch entertainer.  She breathed social.  Being around other people made her feel happy and alive, for more reasons than I'm sure I've even deduced. 

While I had her to myself, during the healing phase, my mom was none of that.  She was sweet.  Carefree.  Loving.  She still loved to have people around.  She also continued to yell, but I've always thought it was just a bad habit.  She was who I look back at old pictures and see.  She had become who she was as a young girl.  And it was great.

And now, a week into her passing, I'm creating memorial boards.  I'm writing an obituary and eulogy.  I'm forced to delve into a past that I'm sure went missing on purpose, and create something positive through all those feelings.  It's hard.  Impossible.  But she deserves it.  So as I mold mostly less-than-positive memories into a positive sounding story, I realize, I'm working.  I'm working so I don't feel.  I'm working so I don't have to deal with it.  So what's going to happen when it's over?  When there's no more planning and executing?  When it's just me and life?

I wrote: "Cynthia Duskin, passed away peacefully in her home in Huntington Beach, CA..." and sent my sister the obituary for proofreading and additions.  What I got back read: "Cynthia Duskin, passed away peacefully, due to a heart attack..."  This was the first time I heard the cause of death.  I had it in my head that angels were dancing around her as she slept and got her all dolled up and took her to the ball, painlessly. So obviously, I rebelled when I read it.  I got angry.  Angry at my naivet'e.  Angry at my mom.  Angry at life.  Angry at God.

Why would I assume someone so young would pass so peacefully?  Why would she fight so hard to overcome so much just to succumb to a heart attack?  Why did it have to happen in the middle of the night when no one was awake to help?  Why did it have to be her?  Life isn't fair.

So, here I am, nearing the end of the planning stage, and anxiously awaiting the downtime.  The idle moments that will allow me to over-think and over-analyze.  I will become even less patient.  I will hurt.  I will cry.  And then, hopefully, I will recover.  I will understand the meaning of my loss.  I will become less selfish.  I will make the changes in my life that would make her, and me, happy.  I will grow from this.  Which, I know from experience, is what every mom wants for their children.  I will overcome this struggle the way my mother overcame so much adversity.  I love you momma.