My Sisters…….

 

So many things are happening around me to the people I love.  I spent the day with my best friend from High School who lost her son in October.  I feel good that she knows she can tell me anything, no matter how dark, about what she is going through and she knows that somehow I get it….I guess that’s how it is with someone you’ve known since you were 15.  I love that girl like she is my sister.  Losing is child is a journey that will not end for her until she breathes her last breath.  I loved her son…I can still see is beautiful smile.  It still doesn’t feel real that he is gone.  I talk to her about him…people avoid doing that with parents who have lost their child in an attempt to save them from feeling more pain but, they do want to talk.  I get that now.

My sister called me tonight.  Since she found out she had cancer she isolated herself from almost everyone.  I have been calling, leaving messages, and texting her daily just to let her know I am here.  When I saw he name of an incoming phone call I was so relieved.  We talked for hours.  She has seemed to come out of the fog that has been surrounding her and I am grateful for that.  She has 2 years of treatments ahead of her.   She will survive this.

My youngest sister is facing a divorce of her own doing.  I feel for her but, she made it happen.  Her husband is not a perfect man but, he did love her.  She threw it away in favor of her drug abuse.  she started out with prescription drugs but, I have no idea what it has escalated to.  I tried for years and years to get her help.  I tried every trick in the book.  Nothing worked.  I just told her how much I love her and that I am here for her if she needed to get help.  That is all I can do.  My baby sister.

My middle sister is in a mess of her own.  Because of her neglect of my beautiful niece my 15-year-old niece is pregnant.  I am in shock.  My sister’s life has been spiraling out of control for 2 years since the father of he daughters suddenly died.  I have tried everything to help her, too.  She doesn’t want my help and now hates me because I called child protective services on her for the neglect.  She is involved with a horrible man.  After a million phone calls to DCF I finally got them to get a court order keeping him away from my nieces.  That only made my sister practically move out of the apartment she shared with my nieces and into the horrible man’s place.  That left 2 young teens with free reign to do whatever they felt like doing….like any teen would be thrilled to do and DCF did nothing to stop it even though the girls had plenty of good, safe place to be.  Now my niece, who held so much promise in her life with her beautiful mind and kind heart will be a mother by Christmas.  I tried for 2 years to get my sister the help she needed.

Then there are my two.  My Son and Daughter.  The two of them best friends.  I love to listen to them talk when I am in another room.  I wanted them to be close and they are.  My son on the dean’s list in college….starting his third year in september.  My baby girl just got her first job.  Taking 3 AP classes in her senior year of high school.  Both of them ready to take on the world.  Both of them doing what it takes to build their lives.  If you talk to them they will tell you that I had nothing to do with the direction they are headed in.  When they say that I bite my tongue.  I stop myself from telling them how hard I worked to keep them on the right track.  Maybe they will realize that when they are older.

My sisters are a mess.  Right now, I am like a bird without my wings.  When I cry I cry alone.  No one holds me.  no one tells me it’s going to be ok.  This is not the first time in this position for me.  What makes me hold on are my children.  I have held on for them through seemingly insurmountable situations in the past and I will continue to do so.  I have to.  I love them so deeply and completely.

While at the time I am a helpless Sister, I am a devoted Mother and no one can take that away from me.

 

 

 

 

 

Three Mother’s Worlds Torn Apart

My Mother in High School

It is midnight.  It is Mother’s Day.  I cannot sleep as I imagine my Mother and my oldest Sister Cathy can’t.  It started with Cathy thinking she had a urinary tract infection.  Antibiotics that didn’t seem to be working.  A CAT scan.  A Cystoscopy.  The shockingly ugliness of cancer clear as day on the screen.  Surgery to remove a tumor from her bladder with the Doctor shining with optimism.  The pathology results two Thursday’s later with news that knocked the wind out of me, left my sister unable to speak to any of us and me having to make a phone call to my Mom telling her that her oldest daughter’s life has changed forever….that she may lose her life.  I have been crying since thursday.  Fear and pain have a grip on me that I cannot escape.

Three Mothers devastated.  The best case scenario is that Cathy has her entire bladder removed along with her ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus and a good portion of her vaginal wall.  She will have to wear a bag on her abdomen that empties the urine from her body. Chemo and radiation.   She is only 51 years old.

Worst case scenario is that it has spread.  It is a fast spreading cancer.  A PET scan this week.  The results two Thursday’s from now.

Cathy and her daughter.

Sometimes, I can’t breathe and have to cry in order to catch my breath again.  The thought of what she has ahead of her overwhelms me.  I want to take her place so she doesn’t have to suffer.

My beautiful children try to comfort me.  I love them for that.

She is the person I have known longest in my life.  We dressed alike.  We are 16 months apart.  I stole her clothes in high school.  We first smoked pot together and she got so paranoid we never did it again. She was the Maid of honor at my wedding.  Her daughter was born 6 months before my son and the first time I held her my son kicked her from inside me.

This can’t be happening.

 

 

 

 

 

The Cake

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I made this cake for my baby sister today.  Her Birthday was January 7 but, I haven’t felt up to making it of late.  This morning I woke up and just started making it.   This cake is an old family recipe and for some reason, I am only one who makes it.   In my family it is called, “The Cake”.  If you say , “The Cake” you can only be talking about one thing.  Even my son, who eats no sweets, will have a piece.  Everyone loves it!

I think the snow uplifted me a little….motivated me.  Speaking of snow, when I got to her house I said to my daughter, “Boy, I hope I don’t slip and fall”.   I got out of the car, cake in hand, and promptly fell flat on my face.  I was covered in snow but, that cake was still perfect!  I was laughing so hard that I couldn’t breathe.  My sister saw me fall, as did her neighbors, and thought I was crying.  I haven’t laughed that hard in so long!

So, my sister got her cake and a hysterical delivery that we will, no doubt, laugh about for years!