Laura’s Story

It is almost unreal to be navigating so many feelings at the same time. I was so used to living with the shadow of cancer that I felt like we were never really going to lose the battle. And yes, it’s been a battle that we’ve fought together. I have never had cancer, but I have lived with it since I was eleven years old. My mother has had cancer for more than 14 years and it became more of a habit, an everyday thing.

I remember the afternoon when doctors told us there was nothing else they could do because her body was not responding to any treatment. I have that hopelessness in her eyes tattooed in my heart. For the first time in my life I noticed she had already lost all will to fight. She, who had always encouraged me to keep going, regardless of how difficult things were, and who had taught me that there’s a solution for everything in life, lost all will to live. After endless months of treatments and visits to all kinds of specialists, she accepted that enough was enough. And that’s how we were immersed in the terminal stage.

For a long time now, it's been just me and her at our household. Life and the disease itself were responsible for leaving us with the only thing that lifts us today, the pure love of mother and daughter that only the two of us know how many mountains it can move. I never thought I'd see my mom die one day at a time. I did not think it was possible to witness how each breath slowly, very slowly takes life away from her and with it a large part of my heart.

The roles have been reversed. When I was a child, she was the one who woke me up every morning with an orange juice and a warm smile. Nowadays, I'm the one waking her up with a cocktail of pain, nausea, and anxiety medications. Ironically, that’s the happiest moment of the day (and of the night, since I have to wake her up several times through the night) because I remember with gratitude how she would get up every morning to prepare breakfast and spoil me through the day. Sometimes I sit in a chair next to her bed and she ends up leaning to hug me around the waist. It reminds me of when I was a little girl and I hugged her legs, only now she is the little one and the one holding on to me.

It’s been a very slow process, slower than what we both expected. She is desperate because of the pain, the lack of energy, the way her body does not respond to how fast her mind is going, the difficulty to keep up with a conversation or at least form a coherent sentence, the lack of freedom. And me, well, I feel helpless and hopeless watching her endure what seams to be an endless suffering.

Quarantine and the virus haven't helped much. I am afraid to leave my house, not only because she depends on me but also because of the imminent danger of the virus, and I have only done it to take her to the clinic or to get something from the supermarket. As it is to be expected, my mental health has been chaotic in recent months and little by little, without any intention, my energy has dissipated. It's hard to interact with other people without feeling out of place or misunderstood. My loved ones are watching out for me, but I don't even have the energy to respond to their messages. Having them living far away or in a different country whilst we’re going through a global pandemic has been hard. I don't know what to say and they don't either. I have isolated myself, but I have come to the realization that it is a normal part of the process. At first I felt weird because I couldn't find any validation for my feelings until I found grief groups and learned about anticipated grief. I understood that what I go through daily is something common when someone sees a loved one die. That has been the most powerful, yet terrifying finding for me. It is powerful because I feel accompanied by all the daughters (also sons, but The Motherlove Project is mostly formed by women) who know my pain and, although we have not lived the exact same experience, they recognize the feeling. It is scary because I don't want to know what grief is if anticipating grief feels the way I have felt in the last few months.

I now understand why when someone is going through a tough time in the movies their neighbors or friends bring them food. I now understand that when you grieve you forget that you must eat, you forget that you have to attend to things other than your own pain and confusion. But most importantly you forget that it is okay not to be okay. In the last few months, I have found myself overwhelmed by toxic positivity. I thought that I had to be grateful and happy all the time for being able to share this space with my mother, that I had to feel lucky to give her everything at this time. And yes, I am grateful and I feel lucky, but I also want everything to be very different, I want to be as happy and strong as I had always been, I want to be able to invite my mother to enjoy her favorite meal, I want to go for a walk with her, hand in hand, I want to sit down and discuss with her my dreams and frustrations, I want us to make plans together, I want to be sure that tomorrow she will be fine and above all I want to say all of this without the response being “just look at the bright side”.

I don't know how much time we have left, her illness has been pretty much out of the ordinary and doctors refuse to give us a time table because they simply have not faced a cancer that behaves like hers. I don't know if she will finally decide to end her own suffering through that last option that doctors have to offer and that is legal in my country. What I do know is that I will always be able to look at myself in the mirror and recognize in my eyes the reflection of the woman who had me in her womb, who I now have in my arms and who I’ll have to let go pretty soon. That I guess is the only thing I’ll always hang on to.

This is not yet the story of her memory, this is still our story, but I am here to thank this community that I am gradually becoming a part of because thanks to your voice and courage I am finding a place for my pain.