10.

My mom was diagnosed with leukemia either in December 2003 or January 2004. I found out about it, though, in January 2004.

Mom was really tired around Christmas 2003, but she still did as much for us as she had in past years. She didn't have as much energy and I remember taking some of the Christmas morning pictures that she normally would've taken. I took some pictures of her opening her gifts, which, if you look through past albums, there are of course hardly any photos of her since she was always the one behind the camera.

A few days after New Year's 2004, I was at my boyfriend Philip's house with plans of spending the night there, which wasn't an uncommon occurence for me even though we were only a few months into our relationship. My mom called my cell phone, I guess to check up on my plans for the evening, and had asked me to just come home for the night instead of staying. She said that she had something to talk to me about, but I insisted on not coming home. I told her that we could talk about it when I got home. After hanging up, I remember telling Philip something to the effect of "I'm sure it's not that big of a deal" or "Sometimes she's so dramatic."

The next day our nuclear family had a pow-wow to deliver the news. Mom had cancer. I don't remember this very clearly; my feeling is that at the time I didn't realize it was that big of a deal and/or they weren't acting like it was a big deal, so I just didn't care that much. My life wasn't going to be any different. It was just something that Mom was dealing with. I don't know if at that point we knew it was leukemia. When I say "we," I mean myself and my brother, Ryan. I think generally Ryan and I were spared the details. Perhaps it was too painful to tell us the full truth or maybe our parents genuinely didn't know or just thought we didn't care or need/want to know.

Over the next weeks, Mom went to chemotherapy. My aunt Peggy and my dad took her to the Community Cancer Center, which is just a few blocks from our house. ("Our house" as in the one I grew up in where my dad still lives.) Again, I don't know much of this time because I was in college, wasn't told much, wasn't around much, and also probably wasn't that interested. I knew that Mom was tired a lot, but I still didn't have much more to do around the house to help out.

Her hair fell out, but I never saw the extent to which it was gone. My brother's girlfriend, Ashley, did hair and I guess at some point helped her buzz off what was remaining. After that time, she wore one of those turbans. She had a couple--a pink one and a purple one.

It seemed like there were a few hospital visits where my Mom's blood count levels were off somehow and they had to watch her overnight. I remember one time distinctly when she was in a pretty nice hospital room. My visits were brief.

I'm pretty sure during this whole time that my mom wasn't working. At least I don't remember her going to work. How can you work when you're going to chemotherapy like three times a week and are in and out of the hospital? So I guess she wasn't. You can tell how oblivious I was to this whole thing...

It was a Thursday, probably the first Thursday in March. Mom was in the hospital, I guess because they were concerned about something and watching her overnight. I was the only one there visiting her and it was late afternoon; I just had just gotten out of class. I talked a little bit about school. I was there for probably 20 minutes. She was very tired and if I remember, she encouraged me to go home and work on homework. Before I left, I got her some water and hugged her. I asked her about the mark on her cheek and she said it was a pimple. It kills me now to know that this was the last time I talked to my mom while she was awake.

The phone rang that night in the middle of the night. I answered it before my dad got to it, but he picked up just a few moments after I did. It was a nurse at the hospital summoning my dad. I stayed at home. Mom was going into surgery. I, to this day, still don't fully understand what that surgery was.

When I went on Friday to visit her, things seemed okay. Everyone was there--we were waiting... for what, I don't remember. I suppose we were waiting for her to wake up from surgery, for her to feel good enough for us to chat. I remember a plastic surgeon coming in to talk to us about working on her face after she got better and I was annoyed that he was talking about plastic surgery when things felt so much more serious than that. It was the beginning of spring break and Philip and I had plans to go see a movie. At about 7:00 pm, I went to go tell Mom bye for the night, even though she was sleeping. I was in there alone with her when a nurse came in and said something about her blood pressure to another nurse.

Philip and I left the hospital and went to the McDonald's drive thru. While waiting for our food at the window, I said, "Everything happens at night." We came home and were eating in the kitchen. The house was so dark and quiet. The phone rang and I just knew it. I knew it. It was my dad. He said that I better come back to the hospital. It was about 8:30 at this point. I told Philip that he could stay and hang out at our house, if he wanted.

The drive to the hospital was awful. Town was strangely quiet and empty despite it being 9:00 pm on a Friday. I was at an intersection near Eastland Mall and sat through 3 rotations of lights before I was able to go. As in, the green turn light came on, but not the one for me to go straight. I called Philip at that point and told him that he could go home, if he wanted. It was probably weird for him to be at our house all alone. I finally got to the hospital and to her room. Everyone was there.

Most of the next three hours are a blur to me. I remember my dad, my brother, and I standing by a window talking about how mom didn't want any extraordinary measures taken to keep her alive. I remember the nurse checking her blood pressure and it just keep getting lower and lower. At about 12:45 am on Saturday, March 6, 2004, my mom died. I was holding her hand and rubbing her arm and kind of having a nervous breakdown, telling her and kind of yelling that she was my best friend and that I love her and that I would miss her so much. I took her for granted.

I left the room pretty quickly once they announced that she was gone. By myself, I walked to the waiting room and laid face-down on the couch and just cried. I talked a little to God. I talked a little to my mom. I foolishly, as a 19 year old, expected someone to follow me or come a few minutes later to find and console me, but no one did. It was surreal that it was actually happening. My mom just died.

The rest of the night after that is also a blur. I know I didn't drive myself home; my cousin Jason took me and my dad home. I had called Philip and somehow got out that she was gone. He drove all the home to Hanna City earlier that night and then drove back in the middle of the night to be with me.

Apparently she was bled internally, I assume from the surgery. The pimple or infection or whatever it was on her cheek caused the infection, we think. During chemo your white blood cells are low and if you get sick or an infection, it's really serious. That is what we think happened. It is awful to still not really know what went wrong.

I wrote her a letter and put in an envelope, along with some pictures of us together. I wish that I would've kept a copy of the letter.

There is nothing else is my life that has so profoundly effected me as a person. My mom was not perfect, but she was good. She loved us so much; more than we deserved. She was very proud of her family. She had so many friends and talents. I can't believe that she's been gone 10 years. 10. years. A decade. It is truly unfathomable.