& many more.

Dear Omma, 

Happy extended birthday! On March 3rd, you marked the occasion of your 69th year, and because we do as much as we can Eunice style now, we've been celebrating for going on 3 weeks now! Because, even if we were to extend your birthday for another 3 weeks, months or years, it still wouldn't be enough. 

A few weeks ago, you started your 3rd line chemotherapy because your cancer didn't respond to the first two. Those treatments' rate of predicted success, though still not great, were higher than your current treatment. Ever the fighter, you tell us you want to continue with chemo, even as you wonder aloud why the cancer keeps spreading through your body (the cancer now having slipped into your pelvic bones) and as your care team urges us to consider palliative options you don't seem quite ready for.  

As your oncologist searches for options that may provide a last alternative treatment, we are also provided with statistics to try and help us process what's happening now, almost as if these data points are barometers for how much hope we can maintain. But truthfully, even if a medical miracle were to happen (which I've read many accounts of, in my own attempt to process), just like no treatment can be 100% curative, a promise of more time doesn't necessarily provide what I've hoped for - perhaps naively - a 100% reconciliation and 100% of expectations met. 

What your illness has given us though, Omma, is a heck-of-a-lot of healing and perspective, as well as moments of joy I may have foregone or otherwise postponed indefinitely. Like when you showed me how to make my favorite radish kimchi, instructing me to slice the green onions on the diagonal just-so. Or the afternoon when you and Dad had a "who's on first" moment, when he just couldn't hear your articulation for "sherbert", not "sorbet", as you told him what you wanted for dinner (ice cream diet being one of the only perks of a stomach ulcer).  And when C came to North Carolina for your birthday dinner, your smile stretched wide as you hugged him hello and greeted him with the white tulips you'd wrapped, and even wider still as he enthusiastically ate the kimchi we had made together. 

Josh reminded me recently that, as far as moms go, he and I got a pretty amazing one. Omma, I know we've caused you hurt and confusion by not seeming to adopt your values and when we didn't have a close relationship with you. Although we may never fully agree on our beliefs, your love for us is unconditional and I know how much I will continue to feel your love even after you've passed...of that, I am 100% certain. 

I love you, Omma. 

A triple birthday celebration for Mom, GohMoh and Aunt Priscilla, as well as an NC introduction.