January 8th.
One year ago.
It has been one year since my mom finally let go and left
the earth.
This past year has been one of the hardest of my life. Her death
was the catalyst for unimaginable change.
Two weeks before she passed away, the words Pancreatic Cancer
were first uttered. There are few other words that will suck the breath and
hope out of a room. It seemed so cruel, unfair, and unbelievable. She had
emerged from years lived with chronic illnesses, genetic mysteries, freak
medical accidents victorious. Yet, this was a diagnosis no one could defeat.
Her body knew it. She knew it. And she started shutting down.
This side of the journey was traumatic.
· -For a family that had always had hope (and
sometimes only hope) our hope was stolen.
· -The flippancy of some of the doctors and medical
staff still stings.
· -The assumptions of the staff because of my
mother’s appearance still upsets me. If they’d taken the time to learn her
story, maybe they would have been less judgmental. Or maybe they could have
just kept their mouths shut.
· - The home health agency that called 8 hours after
her death and wanted to schedule return of equipment that same day still
baffles me. Health care is more than a business.
· -The man without all this faculties whom the
hospital left of unsupervised that found his way into my mom’s hospice room.
And the nurses that didn’t think it was a big deal. I’m still angry.
I lost more than my mom. I lost my only parent. I lost my
biggest advocate. I lost the only other person who intricately understood a
life lived with chronic and mysterious autoimmune disease. That understanding
was more than just living with the disease but the atrocities and oppression of
the health care system.
At times, it still seems so unbelievable.
I am still journeying through the grief. I am still trying to make sense of it all. I'm still wrestling with God. I'm still frequently overcome with emotion. The smallest things trigger the biggest memories. I'm working on building my life in the midst of all the grief and change. It is hard in ways I can't describe. I'm trying to be faithful to the grief journey even though I can't understand it.
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