Sunday, January 23, 2005
Mom
Today marks 15 years since my mother passed away. I was really quite obsessed with death when I was a child and would constantly ask my mother if she was going to be around for various life events. She'd always answer yes, as I do to my son when he now asks me.
My mother found out she had a very advanced case of gall bladder cancer in the summer of 1989. I remember thinking how strange that she'd been in the hospital for a few days and she didn't get any better (don't you always get better after being in the hospital?). The cancer was too far along and there was nothing to do. Over the next few weeks we took various family road trips to the best cancer hospitals in the area to see if anything could be done. One especially long trip was to University of Pittsburgh. I believe it took 11 hours to drive across the state of PA from Long Island, NY. At Pittsburgh, the doctors told us she had about 5 months left and it was almost to the day that she died.
When she realized how short a time she had left she told me that she wouldn't be around for my wedding after all (and by the way the guy that I was dating was boring and wouldn't make me happy...we broke up shortly thereafter). She wouldn't be there for my graduation from graduate school, my wedding, the birth of my children or any other milestone I've had over the last 15 years.
Of course, my mother was around for many other important parts of my life and I have very fond memories of my time with her. I know she would have loved to come to Paris and play with her grand children. That would have made her very happy.
So, I decided that I would put a picture of her on my blog. I'm ashamed to say, that only two small pictures are in my possession. The rest are in storage somewhere in Virginia. Since I don't have a scanner I took a picture of a picture. You get the idea.
-- said Auntie M in Paris
9:00 AM