I had a $20 bill leftover from my trip. I told her she could have $10 of it, but she’d have to bring me change. “Be sure to hold onto that, I don’t want you to lose it. Got it?”

“GOT IT!” And with that, she was off.

Annabella is a marketers dream. If she’s seen the commercial, she needs it. Ergo, no broadcast or cable television in our home. She sees signs at school for the school store and MUST have money for it. Only to buy dopey little trinkets that break before the day is over. Not my idea of a sound investment.

She walked out of the building after school with the biggest grin on her face. She said, “Mom, I only spent $9! And I’ve go a receipt for you in my backpack.” She was carrying a large poster with a kitten on it.

I asked, “Did you get anything besides the poster?”

“Well, my friend (her best friend, actually) lost her money. But I was able to buy her a poster and me a poster and still spend less than the $10 you said I could. Your change is in the backpack, it’s $11 exactly.”

What a beautiful heart my girl has.

Redding, ever vigilant, “I’m not babe. I’m your boy, not your sister.”

“You mean, you’re not Annabella? YOUR sister? Do I call her babe?”

“Yes, she is babe.”

“Who are you, then?”

“I’m buddy.”

“Really?”

“Yes, and dad is honey.”

I am a creature of habit, it seems.

My mom has been fighting cancer of the pancreas for 15 months now. This is quite the rarity. She’s an extraordinary and shockingly strong woman.

She is doing the whole experience on her own terms. She does not want anyone sitting around crying over her. She does not want her children involved in her care. She wants to live in her own home and do as she pleases. Which sounds great, right?

Well, she’s slimmed down, to say the least. She’s not willing (or able?) to eat much. Her muscles are gone. Between the muscles fleeing the scene and the powerful pain pills, and goodness knows what else, she’s been falling down. When? Why? Good questions. We don’t know. She hides it. From her brother who lives next door and helps her out all h can. From her sister, a retired nurse, who does all she can. From her children most especially.

So she fell (again) or passed out, or something of the kind and spiked a fever and was not responsive on Saturday evening and got herself a trip in an ambulance to the ER. Followed by a nice, strictly enforced, rest in the PCU for a couple days. I say strictly enforced because she was literally tagged with multiple day-glow wristbands that proclaimed SEVERE FALL RISK, and a bed alarm that would sound if she so much as picked her behind up off the bed.

The social worker came to talk to us. First, can I just say, if you are going to be a social worker in a hospital, particularly on the PCU floor, get the damn flu vaccine and stop wearing a mask. It does not help you evoke trust or transmit caring to the people around you. It says you’d rather be elsewhere and you don’t give a fig about the people in front of you, but the hospital requires you to wear a mask.

OK. Moving on. She said that mom would be evaluated by Physical Therapy, to see if she needed Rehab to go home. She asked Mom some questions. Thankfully Tammie told her straight away, “She can hear you just fine.” So she stopped yell-talking. She asked mom if she’d been able to bathe and dress herself before coming to the hospital. Mom said, “Yes.” And we all stood there, as she lied. We, as her children, had been added to her chart for the cancer ward, but not the PCU, so our input was neither desired nor required.

We all told her that she should go to rehab. Maybe they’d be able to get some protein in her and get some muscle tone back, so she wouldn’t fall so much. Maybe. I mean, honestly, there’s a tiny shocked part of me that thinks that even though she’s been told that surgery is out of the question, that she’s been at this for 15 months, maybe she could actually recover?

So she managed to snow the Physical Therapist and maybe even the social worker, and has been sent home, alone, today. To do what she does. To do what she can.

Who fights cancer with chemo for 15 months straight? Who keeps on fighting if their quality of life is sitting in a recliner in front of a TV most of the time, only consuming milk and melons, and falling down on a regular basis? Who won’t accept help unless it is exactly on her terms? Who? Who does these things?

My mom. Does all this and more. Exactly on her own terms. It isn’t what she wished for herself. She’s mad as hell. You can see it in her clear blue eyes. You can see it in her rosy smooth cheeks and the set of her jaw. She didn’t see this coming, didn’t want cancer, didn’t want to be a victim.

Go ahead and save your tears. She doesn’t want them. Don’t tell her what she does and doesn’t need. Don’t tell her that you just want her to be safe. She sure as hell didn’t choose to get sick, but pretty much everything since that day has been on her own terms. You may not like it, but you have to respect her for it.

So very much about the whole situation sucks on a level that I can not even begin to articulate and you know what? I don’t know the half of it. She keeps me in the dark as much as she is able. You think I’m kidding? I still don’t know what STAGE of cancer she was diagnosed with 15 months ago. How’s that for in the dark?

As I said earlier today, I am sad and frustrated because I just want to make it all better. And I know that I can’t make anything better for her and that is just kicking my butt today. So I’ll put on the “Rehab” song and at least laugh at the irony of her strength of will… Stand humbled by her dignity. Know that as long as she is fighting and doing everything on her own terms, that she is still the woman that raised me.

The harder she is to deal with, the more she is just herself. My mom.

Love you, mom.

But I promise you, that you are going to get the hang of it. You’ll figure out a way to either make your writing meet expectations or to squeak through like your mom. Dad is helping you with this because I understand all too well the desire to make your letters look like everyone else’s and no matter how hard you practice, that is just not what comes out the end of your pencil. But nobody really worked with me, so maybe dad can help. It’s worth a shot, and you deserve it. You deserve to give yourself the chance to grow beyond this trouble spot. It may not be easy, but if you can get past it, you will be rewarded in small ways for the rest of your life.

So many things in life are like this. They look insurmountable. Until you take it one step at a time, or someone shows you the way, or you just have a breakthrough. Just keep plugging away, OK?

You’re so amazing. Everything that comes to you so easily. It just takes my heart and squeezes it, in a good way. Possibly, those things that come easy make the hard stuff look much harder than it really is. Just keep at it. Don’t give up.

One more thing. I want you to know how lucky your brother is to have you. He’s 4 and he’s doing addition, and he figured out reading on his own… He makes everything look so easy. Do you want to know why? Because he has you. You show him things that Dad and I can’t. You are there for him, to challenge him and keep him learning new things. He wants to be just like you. You are a role model and an inspiration that he can totally relate to. And you? Had to figure it all out, with just Dad and I to lend a helping hand. And as much as we love you and want to help you, we are just not, well, kids.

Keep going, kiddo. I know that once you get some of your third grade challenges tamed, you’re going have a blast at school again.

Love you,
Mom

This evening I got a little picture of how the children see me. They were chasing each other around the house. I heard Redding call out, “Annabella, you’re the mom, now you say, ‘Get back here and give me some love!’ OK?” She did, they continued chasing, and dissolved into giggles.

#4 is Good Cook, which is rather a shock, since Annabella is all about chicken nuggets at this particular moment in her life.

But it’s the last one that really makes my eyes misty. My girl thinks I have a big heart. How wonderful is that?

The “Just Mom and Me” American Girl book is her most favorite thing in the world right now. I highly recommend it.

I do not love that they are so delighted to be together that Annabella goes to the bathroom with the door open and Redding can’t wait to spend time with her, so I find him camped out on the floor with his snack, waiting for her to be done, so they can play some more.

Goofy little bastards.

~Ella Wheeler Wilcox