Turbo Cancer: Day 129 - October 18, 2022
San Francisco
On this day, last year, my mom wrote:
Yesterday kind of ordinary, or my new ordinary. Lumpy hurts, constipated, did readings and exercises.
Today Kristi off to San Francisco to obtain and sprinkle Steven’s ashes. Mikey going with her. Jonathan meeting her. He lives in L.A. It will be a hard trip for her. I pray every day for her and Steven, that they have both found peace.
In ‘Cancer and Faith,’ J Cormody speaks of his anointing sacrament of the sick. He speaks of being welcomed home, being at peace, being loved by God.
It was a hard trip.
My son Mikey went with me. This was an odd choice. Of my children, Mikey, by his temperament, is the least likely to be empathetic or comforting. However, during my mom’s illness, I heard a voice in my brain, telling me what to do. I was unable to think for myself. I just did whatever the voice said.
The voice told me to take young Mikey to San Francisco.
I was in a state of shock. I was going through the motions of life, with no awareness of the living that was happening around me.
If Steven had died when my mom was well, I’m certain that she would have insisted that I have a service for him. She would have demanded that everyone who had been in his life be included. She would have arranged a traditional gathering of family and friends. She would have made sure he had a proper goodbye.
There are times when I regret not doing that for him.
There are other times when I think that I did the only thing that I was capable of doing and that, therefore, it must have been right. It must have been perfect.
Things must have happened as they were meant to happen.
I don’t know. I can’t remember whether it felt right.
Mikey and Steven were born ten years apart but, in spirit, they were my two closest children. They, somehow, from day one, seemed to understand each other. Before drugs tore our family apart, Steven played with his baby brother all day, every day. Mikey looked up to Steven. He loved him and he trusted him.
Then, when he was still a little boy, Mikey lost him.
Mikey was just a kid when mental illness and addiction took his hero away. Things like that, obviously, have an effect on a boy’s development. He was a tough little dude, but Steven had changed. He was too young to understand what was happening, and it was very hard on him. It made him angry and defensive. It made the innocent little boy in him harder and harder to reach.
Addiction changes every part of a family. It changes every member.
Addiction is a curse.
On this day, last year, Mikey and I got up early, drove to O’Hare airport, checked our bags, waited in line, boarded a plane, and flew to San Francisco.
Upon arrival, we found our hotel, and then took an Uber to the crematorium.
Steven’s childhood friend, Jonathan, who lived in Los Angeles, was planning to meet us the following day. The three of us would go to the ocean, to scatter Steven’s ashes, returning his tattered body to the universe.
We would spend two nights in the hotel and then fly back home.
My mom was still in pain, and she still needed me.
Surgery was only four days away.
Oh Lord, it must have been a trip you dreaded, but for Mikey, to give you the strength you needed.
🤍how old was Mikey during this time?