Five Years
Dear Ma,
It has been 5 years, 5 years! Time, it seems, flys even if you’re not always having fun. A lot has changed, life has moved us forward even when we’d prefer to stay rooted to the spot.
I got cancer, can you believe it? I couldn’t but I got it anyway. It’s a weird one Ma, I spent a summer feeling incredibly close yet incredibly far away from you. I wanted to ring you on so many occasions and say “Shit, I’m so sorry, I never knew quite how tough it was for you.”
It’s a bit like re-reading a favorite book only to flip to the last chapter and find a completely different ending than the one you are used to. An ending that reveals a completely different take on the story. I admired your strength when you were going through it all, I truly did but I didn’t understand it. I do now and that’s broken my heart on a few occasions. Thank you for keeping going with treatment for as long as you did. I understand now, what a huge gift of love that was too us all.
I can’t lie, a certain mother/daughter competion kicked in and I need to thank you for that as well. There were many times (*cough*, after every treatment) when I wanted to quit but I think it became a point of pride – You hadn’t quit, so I wouldn’t either. You win hands down in the stoic stakes though. I was entirely more grumbly and grumpy than you were.
Ma, obviously I miss you and I missed you greatly over the summer but I did have a lot else on my plate. It was strange too, it was this massive thing that I had to negotiate without you. I felt I had to let you go a bit, I hadn’t experienced anything comparative with you, so I had no idea what we’d have done. I guess I grieved for you, another grief in a summer of them. I grieved and I grew up too.
I think you may have gotten frustrated with me while the chemo was on going. I wouldn’t entirely have blamed you, I was frustrated with me at points. Now, though, now I miss your counsel.
I wonder how you lived inside your head after the first time around. My head is like living with a funfair between my ears, which sounds more entertaining than it actually is. It doesn’t settle. I want to yell “STOP”. Riding this Ferris wheel is fun but I can’t actually think for thinking, if you know what I mean. Was it like that for you? Like being overwhelmed with the responsibility of living?
Did you ever think “fuck it I’m going to move to Hawaii or Nashville or Paris and open a cafe?” Did you ever feel that butterfly feeling of having settled for too long on one flower, when there are so many beautiful flowers around? It almost feels there are too many possibilities, that my whirligig self is frightened to pick. Is that living with cancer? Or is that just what living is?
Did you feel all powerful? I have this massive “roar” inside me always on the cusp of escaping. A and Dad are going to hit the roof when they read this, but sometimes I scare myself when crossing the road these days. I stare down cars. It’s an odd reaction to death. It’s not courting it but it’s not all together scary anymore. There are bigger things that scare me.
I respect myself too (it doesn’t sound it with the whole car thing, I know) but it’s like I’m a separate entity. I’m looking at myself through a window and that me, that me that got through all of last year, she’s a total badass. I strut! I’ve never strutted in my life!
It’s not all been cancer, cancer cancer though. The M’s have added another mini M to their brood. They are great parents, far more patient than you or I. Oh, you would be proud.
You’d be so proud of Da too. He is an epic human, I can’t even explain but I guess you knew, you married him. He is the best.
A. and I moved. It was a while ago now, not long after you died. We stayed in the same building and I like the fact you’d still know where we are. We’ve had our moments Ma but we’re doing O.K. I don’t know any other people our age who’ve gone through what we have, we weren’t unscathed but we grew up. I’m kinda proud of us. I love him because even on the bad days he can make me laugh, plus as you always advised, the dude is practical and pretty handy.
I don’t want to stop writing Ma, because it feels like I’ve opened up a little portal between us again and it feels nice but it’s time to let you drift a bit further off.
I miss you, I miss your hands, your soft, soft skin and your weirdly deep clavicles. I miss ducking into bed next you of a morning and chatting. I miss singing musical numbers in the kitchen and how we’d laugh when you would say “probably” in a weird voice, that I don’t even remember why you did but was our joke. I miss you when I work on a show I think you’d love. I miss you when things go right and more when things go wrong.
5 years, I couldn’t imagine it at one time but time plods on and I did survive.
I love you Ma. Always.
Me
x
