This is going to be long, probably a little too heartfelt, rambling, and may cause tears, so you have been warned in advance.
Let me tell you something about my mom.
When I was younger, I used to sing her “You light up my lights/ You give me clothes/ to carry home to the tune of Barry Manilow’s “You Light Up my Life”
She gave up college to take care of me when she was fresh out of high school and my dad was busy flunking out of college.
She put up with years of physical and mental domestic abuse to try and make it work, because that is what her parents taught her to do. This included him cycling through jobs and affairs for about 13 years.
She had the courage to take four kids, ages 12-2, and leave my dad, even though she didn’t make a lot more than minimum wage, because she finally had enough.
She raised 4 kids while working full time, trying to go to college, battling back from a terrible divorce and a more terrible divorce lawyer, battling back from a bankruptcy caused by my dad sticking her with many of the bills, and generally barely having enough money to survive.
After working her butt off for us, and having no social life for years and years, she finally meets someone from a few counties over who sweeps her off of her feet, and she falls for hard. He promises her the world, and the day he is supposed to meet the kids, he no shows. And doesn’t answer the phone when she calls, and she doesn’t hear from him for days. He calls her back a few days later and makes some claim about a freak helicopter accident in one of his barns. She tells him to screw himself.
She was a technophobe, but is so pissed off that she puts a post on the yahoo message boards about how men are the scum of the earth (cleaned up for posting here). Some guy in Fresno responds.
Fresno guy and mom begin to talk regularly, and they are kindred souls- both had history and baggage, enjoy the same things, ready to start over in life, etc. He calls her regularly, footing the long distance charges, and talking to her kids whenever they pick up to get to know them. After chatting for months and months, he flies in for a visit, and fits in incredibly well to our sarcastic, loud, crass, and dysfunctional family. Mom’s attitude towards life begins to change. She starts taking control of her life more, doing what she wants to do. A little while later, she flies to Fresno, and brings Fresno guy back with her in a u-haul, along with all of his worldly possessions.
Fresno guy is warned immediately by family that if he screws up, he will never see Fresno again, and immediately understands. He treats her like a queen. He encourages her to go after her dreams, he encourages her to take stands for herself, he gets her flowers on the 18th of every month to celebrate the day they met.
Mom gets her bachelor’s in social work, and shortly thereafter, gets her Master’s degree in the same. Fresno guy works as an addictions counselor, and they plan on eventually opening their own center. About 3 months ago, mom lands a job focused on working with troubled youth, the field she wanted to go into, and is very happy. She and Fresno guy begin re-doing their house like she wants it to be done, and in general, she starts getting what she has worked for in life. Everyone is thrilled for both of them, and they are well loved.
About three weeks ago, mom calls asking if she could stop by. This is fairly unusual, since I live about 40 minutes away, but whatever. She says she went to the doc for her yearly physical, and complained to the doc about some dizziness and balance problems she was having, but wrote off due to work stress, etc. Doc recommended a MRI, which revealed a fairly substantial aneurysm on her basilar artery, right on front of her brain stem. This is what she wanted to stop by and tell me. She is scared, but dealing with it.
The next week is a flurry of visits to the neurosurgeon for testing and determining a course of action. Neurosurgeon informs her that if left to its own devices, the bubble is going to be a real nuisance, causing greater effects as it grows, including strokes due to it pushing other arteries closed, and if it pops, pretty much instant death due to the brain stem tissue damage this would cause. If she was in her seventies, he would most likely do nothing, but since she is in her early fifties, this is going to be addressed. In order to help “fix the glitch” as the Bobs would say, mom gets to have a bypass surgery performed to help take some of the pressure off, followed several days later by platinum thread being fed into the aneurism itself and coiled to support it and help relieve pressure, along with a stent inserted to help support another artery being affected. This is going to start to happen next Tuesday morning. The neurosurgeon has used the word “tricky” quite a bit, which I personally don’t care for, but he said the way they are doing it minimizes the chances for other very bad things to happen, so I can deal with that. He is also apparently a stud of a doc with a great record, and one of the few in the world who do the bypass surgery in this situation.
To put it bluntly, I am scared to death that the last time I see my mom alive will be when they are wheeling her back for surgery. Knowing how scared I am makes me think of how scared she must be, and I hate not being able to help her. I am angry that she has to be scared about her future again, and that she has to battle something else in her life after having finally seemingly made a good place for herself, and finding someone who loves her more than anything. I hate that she will be in the hole for her medical bills, and that she is even worried about those. I hate that I might lose my mom before she gets to seem me graduate, or her youngest daughter get married, or have another mother’s day. I hate that I am thinking I should make sure I have several copies of Warren Zevon’s “Lawyers, Guns, and money” ready, because that is the song she wanted played at her funeral.
She and Fresno guy called a few weeks ago, and sung me happy birthday over the phone, because that is what they do, even if they are coming over later that day. I usually laugh it off, but I teared up twice while they were singing, because that might be the last time my mom sings me happy birthday. It is selfish compared to what she has to go through, but those are the things I will miss.
Anyway, I know a lot of people on here are like me, and are not the praying type, so I won’t ask you to pray. But I will ask you to keep my mom and our family in your thoughts over the next couple of weeks, and especially next Tuesday morning. She is a very special person to a lot of people, and personally, well, personally, she lights up my lights.
