Turbo Cancer: Day 175 - December 3, 2022
Ice Cream Party
On this day, last year, my mom was happy.
She was very, very, very happy.
Her new pain medicine had kicked in. She was high as a kite. She was comfortable in her new bed. Margaret had spent the night sleeping right next to her.
When I arrived in the morning, she smiled at me and told me that she was hungry for ice cream.
I laughed so hard. I hadn’t seen my mom eat ice cream in over twenty years.
I put out a message about how well my mom was feeling. I said that she was craving ice cream, and then, the ice cream started to arrive. It was like Christmas. Throughout the day, friends and Door-Dashers appeared with gallons, cakes, bars and cones.
In the manner of a young child, my mom displayed a great deal of excitement about all of this attention. Sitting on the cloud that the air mattress had created, she looked like an angel. Seeing her happy made the rest of us happy. The day turned into an endless party of ice cream and laughter.
In the afternoon, my mom announced that her days of pain-induced solitude had ended: “Text my friends. I would like to have some visitors.”
She wanted to share her good mood, and her ice cream, with the people whom she loved. I sent out the message, and, obviously, people came.
It was a joyful day. It was a sigh of relief. The heaviness was lifted, and everyone was floating.
Doctors and nurses had warned me about narcotic side effects. They said that the drugs would cause her to become agitated and difficult. They had said that it was likely that she would be angry and mean. They had said that, when that happened, I needed to remember that it was the drugs. They had said not to take it personally.
They had been wrong about so many things. They were wrong about this, too. The narcotics did not expose any bitterness, resentment or anger in my mom. What happened was the opposite.
Her sweetness increased. She was relieved to be at home, freed from her pain. She was given the opportunity to show gratitude for the life that she had lived and for the people whom she had touched. As she sat on her bed and looked out at her visitors, her face was filled with kindness and love.
The pain, the abuse, the suffering and the drugs had stripped away all of her inhibitions. Her soul was exposed to the world. As it turned out, deep down inside of her, there was no malice. She didn’t have a mean bone in her body. The layers and layers of life’s fears and disappointments had been peeled back. What was left behind was a shy, beautiful, kind, loving spirit, who had spent her time on earth caring for as many people as she possibly could.
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I loved this, Kristi. Every word.
I know your Mom was a lovely person, inside and out. She’s so beautiful in this photo.