Purpose

Mainly, this blog is for me, for me to get out my feelings and share my grief journey.  Most importantly I want to tell the story of my Mom's battle with metastatic small cell lung cancer. She was diagnosed and gone in 4 months.  She was here, she was healthy, and then she was sick and then she was gone. I still shake my head at this.  How can someone so strong die so fast? It happened so fast I'm afraid I'm going to forget it. That is another purpose of this blog, to help me remember as a lot of the details have already faded.  These details while may seem insignificant are important to me. I want to remember all of them. I remember I was eating a hamburger when she called to read me her CT scan. I want to document every day I felt was significant, even if there isn't much to say. I also want others especially those she loved to know her story and the background of what happened.  She kept it under tight wrap for whatever reason.  She didn't let me tell her brothers until the day before she started chemotherapy.  She didn't want to tell my brother Sean until all the tests were back and she knew the full extent of her disease. I hope to share her story as accurately as possible but I know some of my memories may be skewed, the details wrong.  I'm also sharing my perspective which may be different than others.  I want people to know that what I will describe are feelings I have or have had and while they might not be logical or true, I felt them. I have several moments of blame and guilt. How did I not see the signs? Did I steal her hope? Should I have taken her to the hospital? Did I hasten her death? Did I leave her when she needed me most? The answer to all these questions I'm pretty sure is no, but I still feel them and I think that's perfectly normal. The rational side of me knows I did everything I could for her and tried my best to give her a "good" death.  My Mom and I had a beautiful relationship, it was not perfect, it had its healthy share of dysfunction, but I think that's normal too. She was my best friend, she was my world. I hope to share her story and journey through my grief in a way that would make her proud.

The Beginning...May 10, 2014

The end...September 18, 2014