The Reason

Here goes nothing. I am finally divulging the reason for my trip home last month. A few months ago while I was out shopping with Baby Bean my mother called me and told me she had some bad news. She wasn't sure how to tell me, and I could hear by the emotion in her voice that she was trying not to cry. I thought she was going to tell me something was wrong with my dad. When she was finally able to talk, she told me she had just been diagnosed with breast cancer.

My head went into a tailspin. I couldn't wrap my brain around what she was saying, or the fact that she was saying it was happening to her. I wanted to sit down and cry, but I was in the middle of a store with Baby Bean on the verge of being fussy. I choked back my tears, and checked my emotion. My personal phone call was not the business of anyone in that store. Our conversation continued for a while more, as my mom told me how she felt about all of it and how she would handle treatment. The diagnosis wasn't 100% positive yet, so she had a biopsy scheduled.

A few weeks later, the biopsy revealed that she did, in fact, have breast cancer. It was in the early stages, but it was spread throughout the tissue, leaving her with the only course of action being a mastectomy.

Not very many people know my mom recently had breast cancer, or that she had surgery to remove it. I have wondered to myself many times over the months why I wasn't comfortable talking about it to anyone. I love my mother very much, and I care about her and what she is going through, but I was having a hard time expressing it to anyone but Hubs.

After much soul searching, I realized it is because if I told anyone, it was like admitting that my mother is human. She can get sick, and one day she will die. I can't handle that thought. My mom has always been the rock. The person who never gets sick. The Eternal Being. So to hear that she had a life threatening illness was something my subconscious would not let my consciousness handle.

I had suppressed my feelings for months, and still only told a few people. I didn't want people telling me they were sorry and asking how I was doing. I wasn't the one fighting the battle, my mom was. Normally I don't turn away people's good intentions, but when it came to my mom, I couldn't handle them. I didn't want them reminding me she is mortal.

It wasn't until the day of her surgery that I finally let all of it reach the surface. My little brother sent me a text to tell me she was in surgery, and I sat there, thinking of her in the OR, sedated by anesthesia, and I cried. I cried so hard. It hurt. I ached for my mother. I couldn't bear thinking of her in an OR, and it pained me to think of her trying to recover from it all.

I had booked a ticket home a month before the surgery. I would go home to be with her and bring her newest grandbaby. I didn't care how much the ticket cost or the fact that I really couldn't afford it. I knew that flying by myself with my 5-month-old could be disastrous, and at best, would stress me to the max. In the days leading up to the trip, I managed to stress myself out pretty good. Every time I thought about getting through security, take-off, and landing, I would start to sweat and panic, but I made myself get over it. I would make it work, and I would be there for her.

Since the surgery, my mom has gone back in and been found to be cancer free. It has been determined that she will not need any further treatment. They caught the cancer earlier enough that it had not spread anywhere else in her body. She has officially fought the war with breast cancer and won!

She might be sporting a battle wound, but my mother just returned to her immortal status in my eyes. She is a fighter and a healer. With my dad, she is the glue that holds our family together through thick and thin. I am not ready to be without her, which is why I could not entertain the thought of cancer besting her, and it didn't.

I love you very much mom. You are an amazing woman, and I am honored to call you My Immortal Mother.