"THIS is My Daughter!" My Favorite Words

Decisions. I hate having to make decisions. I think that’s all I do sometimes. Most are as simple as what to wear or what to cook. But then there are those tough, make or break kind of decisions where if you make the wrong one you could regret it. I don’t have regrets but I second guess almost everything. It isn’t healthy but that is how my mind works.

Here’s the thing, everyone at some point in their life is going to be faced with a tough decision. Maybe it will be about getting married or starting a family or a job or house. Maybe it will be about life and death. They are all hard decisions. The last one is the hardest. Quality verses quantity. We heard that so many times from so many people. “Well, do you want to live a short time but have your wits or do you want to live a little longer and be in a fog?” How do you choose?

Someone is making that decision today. Someone is choosing how they want to spend the rest of their days. Whichever decision it is, someone will be heartbroken.

My mom made that decision three weeks before here time here ended. I will say this, she was calm, she was classy and she knew. For me, that was a hard day with more to come.

Let me back up seven months from that day. I can’t speak for how my mom felt or what went through her head, I can only repeat what she told me. Day one: diagnosis, let the drugging begin and the fog enter. Discussions, sad faces, feelings of hopelessness and one doctor discussing home health care. HE sucked the life out of me. Shame on him. What evil person comes to his patient’s home and tells them that the love of your life is going to be killed by pancreatic cancer and there isn’t anything anyone can do? I spoke my mind, I think he knew to retreat. My mom wasn’t feeling that bad and he was bringing up home health care. Shut up and find something positive that we could cling to. Nope, simple country doctor who really did know the outcome. The results of the test, the statistics weren’t his fault, the delivery was. 

My poor mom was bombarded with medicine, medical terms and a sea of sighs and sad faces. “You have pancreatic cancer? Oh, that’s the bad one.” 

My mom chose chemo. I say this because it was a choice she had to make. Quantity over quality. One thing about my mom was that she was a good decision maker. She almost never asked me for advice and she never seemed to question herself. This time, she asked me what she should do. Imagine how you would feel telling your mom, let’s have quality. I did but she chose quantity. Again, her choice but it hurt. Nothing went according to the textbook. Chemo was hard, the pain was hard, she was foggy and sick. Now imagine seeing the strongest person in the world fading before your eyes. Thinner and thinner, sicker and sicker. My mom was leaving me one day at a time. I asked her once why she was putting herself through it. She said “for one more day. I want to see your kids start school.” How do you respond to that? I said the only thing I could, “Mom, as long as you want to fight I will help and support you. There will come a time when you have had enough. It will be clear to you and you will just know. When that time comes, I will support you and I will keep loving you for the rest of my life.”

Back to “the final decision.” My mom was in the hospital. She was weak, her thin frame was filling with fluid. She was as yellow as a crayon. She was dying. Decisions had to be made but no one wanted to talk about that. We chatted, people came and went. A doctor came in, I was sitting next to my mom’s bed holding her hand trying not to cry. I’m a crier, she knew it but still, I didn’t want to cry. He came in, my mom introduced us and she said the same thing I have heard all of my life, “and THIS is my daughter.” She gave my hand a squeeze and smiled that smile that told me I was her heart and she was proud. It meant so much at that moment. 

Then, “Carole, you once told me that I would know when enough was enough. Well, I’ve had enough. I want to go home.” She said it with a smile and held my hand the whole time. I said, “then let’s go.” She made her decision. What a hard decision to have to make?!

Gosh I love her.

Today someone is deciding. Today, right this very moment, someone is choosing their path. Can you imagine that? I can’t and part of me still is in awe of how calmly my mom made it. Really, she didn’t make it, God did and Mom just listened to Him. That is an amazing thing.

Three weeks, lots of tears, lots of fears, lots of talks and lots of I love yous later, she went home. My mom chose the right path.