Sudden Change

My Mother was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer.  This was a shock because decades ago she fought and won that battle or so we thought.  She did pay a price for that temporary victory.  On separate occasions, years apart, she had two radical mastectomies.  Once when I was in grade school and the other while I was in high school.  The reasons why she disappeared for those two times in the hospital was never explained or discussed within our family.

This time there were not more battles to be fought, only a war that was to be lost.  It came when she finally moved near her only grandchild, Michael and was expecting another one.  She only got to enjoy her role as being a hands on Bachan, grandmother in Japanese for less than a year.  I had not seen her in delight in all my life so much when she was with Michael.

When she received her death sentence from her doctor, three months to live, she did not want to admit or at least talk about it.  This made it hard for me to visit her especially when the end drew near.  I was at a loss on how to be with her, what to say to her.  I used Michael as my way of comforting her by bringing him along to visit her.  I was grateful that on the day before her death Michael cheered my Mother by singing a song he learned in preschool.

My older brother lived across the country in Boston.  My Mother did not want to bother him with the news of her cancer.  I could not convince her to call.  When I made the call to inform him of our Mother's prognosis, he was shocked because from what he was told by her that it was not too bad.  When Burt realized that this was more than what Mom downplayed to him, he came out to visit.   It was striking to me on how our family related to each other when Burt's visit came to an end, he said goodbye for most likely the last time by shaking her hand before leaving to the airport.

When I finally received a call from one of my aunts who came from Pennsylvania to care for her at home, it was four in the morning.  An hour later as my two aunts and myself were sitting in the room with my forever silent mother came a loud crash and a shake on what seemed like a train hitting the house.  It was the Spring Break Quake, magnitude 5.6.  A week later my daughter Rachel was born.