runlindsayrun

Love, Hurt, and the Space Between

I took the day off yesterday, and went to go hang out with my mom. My dad had to go into work, and she's still recovering from her port-removal surgery that happened on Monday (plus chemo side effects from her last treatment) - so it was pretty obvious that home was where I needed to be yesterday. I'm so lucky to have a boss who's as understanding as he is about family/cancer stuff. His response when I asked for Wednesday off wasn't just 'yes' it was 'of course.'

My mom and I ended up having a pretty interesting discussion over the course of the day. I know that she sometimes feels like she's hurting us - her family - by allowing us to see her when she's so sick. This whole process of chemo is nasty. I answered her quite honestly that yes, it hurts to see her sick like she has been. But we're family. I'm sure it hurt her to see me in the hospital when I was ten years old and being diagnosed with arthritis - and a hundred other things that we've experienced over the years.

Families hurt when bad things happen to them. It's nothing bad, it's just evidence that there is love there. When you love, you hurt.

But when you love, and you hurt, you also earn the right to fully experience the happiness that comes with being part of a family. Cancer sucks, but new babies are awesome. This year, our family is fully experiencing the profound depth of my mom's cancer with the incredible highs of welcoming two grandchildren into the world. It's not good or bad. It's being a family.

The only way to avoid that hurt is to also avoid that happiness, to live your entire life in that insulated space between. And that's not living at all. It makes me sad to realize that there are people in our lives who have chosen this existence, in an attempt to avoid our family's cancer hurt.

Cancer hurts, but the only thing my mom could do right now that would be truly painful or disappointing to me would be to give up. It hurts to watch what the chemo is doing to her body, but it's okay at the same time - because every treatment brings her closer to the end, and the end means a healthy, cancer-free body - and the rest of her life.

Remember at the beginning of this whole journey, when I started counting down milestones? This month, our family will get to celebrate the milestone of my mom's final chemo treatment. But before that happens, we're going to share a massive celebration this Sunday at Run for the Cure. I'm so excited that we can do this for my mom. And I'm so excited to share our family's happiness with the people who've chosen to come and support us.

Labels: Family, Run (Waddle) for the Cure, The C Word

posted by Lindsay @ 8:58 AM