a mother's day note.

Dear Omma,

It’s been more than 15 months since your diagnosis and on this Mothers’ Day, I’d like to celebrate some of the ups…after all, it’s what you’ve been doing throughout!

Your oncologist told us that this chemo regimen has less than 10% odds of success, but against them, you seem to be responding to this treatment. Although your hair has finally succumbed to the chemo (making you look a bit like Korean yoda), your cheerfulness continues to delight the nurses as you go for your weekly treatments, and they cheer alongside you as you shout “woohoo!” and pump your arms when you’ve put on some weight.

Now I worry less about the big unknowns and more about how your day-to-day holds up, as the cancer and chemo can turn even the most taken-for-granted into an obstacle. Your appetite had been strong (albeit your cravings questionable - chicken pot pie with a side of kimchi and coffee ice cream?), until the week when ulcers in your stomach prevented you from digesting food properly and ultimately caused internal bleeding. Because your hemoglobin levels were critically low, back to the ICU you went, for more transfusions and another endoscopy.

Mom, it was just last year that you were in the hospital for 5 weeks because of recurring staph infections, both fed and drained by a system of tubes for weeks. This time, you waited (im)patiently for me to pick you up, tired of the liquid hospital diet after only a couple of days, and fully ready to get back home. And remarkably, the scans showed that your cancer is holding steady…not receding, but not spreading either. How wild, and how grateful I am.

A couple of weeks before your hospital return, our family went on vacation, our first trip together in almost 15 years. We spent mornings reading at the beach and in the afternoons, you and I would scour the local TJ Maxx for deals. You gamely tried to befriend peacocks at the botanical gardens one day, sidestepping your way closer and trying desperately for a picture of a tail in full bloom. As we’d walk on the beach and talk about this, that & and the other, I had a glimpse of the mother daughter relationship I’d observed in others, and sometimes wondered why we didn’t have. And then I realized, we have had it…it’s just been uniquely ours.

At age 4, I felt protective of you when the police officer knocked on our apartment door after we had been in a car accident earlier that day. At age 8, I felt defended when you stood up to the airline attendant who scolded me for misbehavior, insisting that I wasn’t to blame. At age 17, we shared both joy and sadness when I called to tell you of my acceptance to college, and at age 22, I felt your pride and worry as you saw me off on my one-way flight to New York.

While you’ve been cheerful throughout your sickness, I continue to stumble into moments of fear, sadness and simply being overwhelmed. Each time, you tell me not to worry and that everything will be okay, just like you’ve always done for me.

Thank you for being mine, Omma.  

not a peacock in sight, but definitely on mom's radar.