In July 2023, my mom’s longtime doctor called and told her that she needed to be rushed to the hospital. Her red blood cell count was so out of whack that he thought she was bleeding internally. At this point, my mother was very depressed over her younger sister’s death, leading to her eating less, sleeping a lot, and being in a general state of malaise I’d never seen from her. I knew she was sad and really needed help, but I never thought she was sick. I used to tell her to go to the doctor for a check-up all the time; she ominously told me right before she went that she was concerned that she might be really ill and decided to cancel my long-distance, now ex-girlfriend coming over for dinner. In something my family has said a lot since my mother’s passing, she knew.

My mom got admitted to the hospital around midnight. Back at home, I was eating once a day, and not sleeping. I was terrified, and seeing my mom in a hospital bed was really difficult. One day during this stay, I walked in as a doctor said she had liver cancer, which didn’t make sense to any of us, based on her habits. They came back in the next day and said they believed she had colon cancer which had metastasized to her liver.

Easier to treat than liver cancer and much more sensible to me, I was kind of ok with the doctor’s (unconfirmed) diagnosis. But I was still in serious denial. My mom? Handled it incredibly. She admitted she cried with my father the first time they believed she had cancer, but by day 3, she was just willing to do what she had to, to get better. Meanwhile? I’m losing my fucking mind, but hiding that from my mother. She got discharged on the 6th day after a biopsy earlier in the week; we had to go home and wait to see what the results were.

I believe we had to wait about a week and a half. In that time, my dad came home and revealed that he had a mass in his colon, discovered during his routine colonoscopy. He would need surgery to remove it, and they took a sample from the mass to check it for colon cancer. So, in short, me and my family had to wait to find out if both of my parents had colon cancer at the same time. I can only describe the experience as feeling like the top of my head was exploding, every day, with no relief; I don’t know how I survived. My dad’s sample came back clean, but after his successful surgery that cured him, they found out he actually did have a very mild form of colon cancer; my mom’s biopsy revealed that she had Stage IV colon cancer, that had spread to her lungs and liver, and she would have to start chemotherapy.

My mother made it a point to tell me, my sister and my dad that she wasn’t going to die immediately, because God was going to give us time to prepare for her to go. Yet again, she knew.

My mother’s first course of chemo was from August 2023 until mid-February 2024, just after my birthday (Valentine’s Day). My mom was a medical miracle; at 68 years old with advanced cancer, the chemo had shrunk half of her lesions and totally removed the cancer from her colon. We all went to the cancer center to see her ring the bell; we took photos and videos that never saw the light of day because my mother was very private about her illness. She was so happy that she cried; I felt tears welling up in my eyes that day, and I do right now. That was when my mom was the most like herself, and once she got put on immunotherapy, which was just an injection she got every 3 weeks, she only got better and better.

Now that her illness was taking less out of her, my mom returned to traveling with my father, one of her favorite things to do. My mother is very funny and incredibly smart; I’m wiping tears of grief and pride thinking about how unique her personality was. I knew my mother was doing better, because not only did she have a lot more energy, but she was back to talking shit about people.

My mom had to be taken to the hospital again in December 2024, one of a flurry of hospital stays throughout the year. When she got there, the oncologist on-site saw her and said her chemo wasn’t working. He ended up being correct; my mom was continuing to lose weight and struggling to eat. My mother was in the hospital for 5 days, even through NYE. Her personal oncologist took her off of that chemo in January, and switched her to chemo pills. The advantage of the pills is they would be easier on my mother’s system and she wouldn’t need to go down the stairs and leave the house, a task that was becoming more difficult for her with each passing week.

I regularly cooked for my mom, handled any day to day issues that came up, and helped her walk around the house. The neuropathy from all the chemo took away the sensitivity in her hands, making it hard for her to pick her pills up. I used to drop them in her mouth, and hold her water bottle, that was now too heavy for her. Seeing her that weak really killed me. This was all so sad, but my mind was set on helping her no matter what. How poorly she was doing was barely registering, but I felt it in my spirit. I felt in my (ongoing) inability to sleep, because I fashioned myself into a light sleeper so I could jump out of the bed and help her in crisis situations, which started to happen with more and more frequency. I felt it in my constant anxiety and fear, worried I was going to find my mother dead in her bed every morning.

My mom had to be taken to the hospital again in April because she had jaundice. I mentioned her eyes to my sister, and she said she had already noticed it. My sister called it in, and her oncologist said she had to go to the hospital to get her liver checked. I was honestly too afraid to call myself, because my mom had been in the hospital barely 2 weeks before, now so weak that she had to be taken home via ambulette, with the EMTs strapping her down flat to a stretcher and carrying her up the steps. I praise my sister for taking the initiative, and her courage got my mother examined.

Ultimately, they couldn’t help her. Her eyes and tears were yellow because the cancer in her liver was worsening, and there was no area where they could stent it and free the bile. On her second to last day, two doctors came in and told us that my mom’s options for cancer treatment are limited, that they didn’t believe she could keep doing chemo because of the state of her bones. You need healthy bones to produce red blood cells; my mom’s skeleton was so worn down from both the chemo and the cancer spreading to bones in her back, that her count was struggling to recover. It was up to my mom’s main oncologist to decide on the next step, on May 20th, a date I dreaded. I fully expected her to tell me my mom was going to die, that day.

My mom was discharged on April 17. They sent her home with the kind of aid she rejected in the past; she now had an in-home physical therapist, a home health aide 3 times a week, and a nurse dropping by to check on her. All 3 of these women were excellent to my mother, but that week is when I realized she would need even more help. She needed an aide that was around more often, and part of the reason my mom finally accepted that kind of help, was to ease the weight on me of taking care of her. I went out more, but my mom was on my mind at all times. I was enjoying myself (I guess) but it was very difficult.

The morning of April 26 at 9:01 am, I was woken up by my sister calling my phone, urging me to go in my mother’s room, because she believed she was home alone. I went in, reassured her, rearranged her in bed and fixed her pillows with my dad, and left the room, as she told us to go. At this point in my mom’s life, she couldn’t really move her legs or body in bed (due to muscle atrophy), so we would have to move them into comfortable positions. I fell asleep, and my eyes jolted open at noon, my own voice in my head saying “CHECK ON MOMMY NOW.” I went back in that room and what I saw broke my heart.

My mother was trying to talk to me but was nonverbal, just grunting through her clenched teeth, and not blinking. Then she started breathing heavily, almost panting. I yelled for my father, who ran upstairs and held her. We alternated in and out of the room, as I called 911 and we had to get dressed; we’ve called the ambulance for her so many times that we had a system. When I went into my room to find a hoodie to put on, I was panicking and couldn’t find anything. I heard, again, my own voice say to me, “Your mother is going to die. Stop rushing.” I immediately calmed down, slowly looked and found my hoodie immediately. I felt calm rinse over me, but I also hoped I was wrong. But I knew I wasn’t. I knew.

I went in that room and she was breathing so lightly that I thought she stopped. I yelled for my dad again, he runs to the bed and is cradling her in his arms. She took two more breaths and left us, and that was the last time I saw my mother alive. She passed before the EMTs got up the steps, and I will never forget how their demeanor changed when I led them to my mother. They relaxed, and had a gentle ease about them that I didn’t see in the many EMT duos I’ve seen in her room. They knew. One of the EMTs put the oximeter on her finger and it was flatlined, and never activated. I pretty much saw that and broke down with my father. Then I called my sister and relayed the bad news.

My friends, my sister with her boyfriend in tow, and my cousin rushed to the house, the officers and EMTs were wonderful to us in such a difficult situation, everyone went above and beyond. My mother passed peacefully, in the bed she loved, in the house she loved, in the arms of the love of her life. She would not have wanted it any other way. Her head rested on her pillows, turned towards the big window in her room. The sun illuminated her so beautifully, and she looked so pleased, that I had to remind myself she was gone. Even typing it right now, I can’t believe it.

Of course, my mom is always with us through her lessons, wisdom and eternal love, but not hearing that laugh ever again hurts me so, so deeply. My mother was in an unbelievable amount of pain, so I don’t want her here on Earth with us, suffering so I can see her face. I am at peace with her having to go, because honestly, things were dire. But I miss her, and not in the overt ways. The silliest shit will happen to me, and I’ll think “I gotta tell mom.” And I still can, but it’s not the same. Those few days after my mother’s death, I felt like I got so many random breaks, and got nudged out of so many poor decisions, that it had to be my mom’s doing. Whether it’s because she pulled strings in a metaphysical sense, or because her guidance still rang true in my spirit, my momma got me. She is still maneuvering things for me, I feel it every day.

When my mother died, I felt freed, which made me feel weird. I felt my desire to die, or totally give up on my life, lifted off of me when my mom left the earthly plane. These last 2 years were extremely difficult for me, between my mom’s health. my break up and my carer woes. When the sun hit me when I stepped outside, all of that was gone. I was good now. I had hope. My mom gave me a lot of things, but her death bought me back to myself. She outright told me that it wasn’t fair that I had to take care of her, that I should be enjoying my life and not spending my time worrying and making sure she was ok. I understood her passing as a chance to live for myself, because that’s what she wanted me to do. My mom handed me something that I could not give myself, as she always has. Selfless still, even in the afterlife.

As difficult as the last few months of my mom’s life were, we had a lot of good times. The smile on her face when we ate together, especially her favorite at the time, Japanese food. The way she used to laugh at my ridiculous observations, the way her laughter filled the floor anytime my sister came over. Me and my mom used to discuss politics, social issues, nutrition, you name it. I loved watching her random YouTube finds with her, whether it be women camping in far off lands or cruise ship reviews, or laughing at the insanity of Disney adults. I was happy to spend time with her, I took taking care of her as an honor, as a deeply held responsibility. My mom sometimes felt like she was a burden, but she was not. I’ve never missed a burden in my life.

I have handled her death pretty well emotionally, but seeing her casket get lowered in the ground was when I felt forced to accept everything. Since her death, I couldn’t remember her voice; it was like my brain was blocking how she sounded to shield me from the pain. But as she was lowered into her resting place, I could hear her saying “Best Son Ever!” which she called me all the time, and I only started to accept in her later days. As soon as I heard her voice in my mind, my eyes filled with tears. I will never be the same, but I’m not supposed to be. I died with my momma too, but I get to take steps to becoming whole with each passing day, and she made sure that I’d be able to do so.