Bold Moves Are the Best Moves

¹It was sometime in my 30’s that a girlfriend told me, “How you spend New Year’s Eve sets the tone for your entire year.” These so-called words of wisdom were her attempt to convince me we needed to make spectacular plans for the occasion.  We’d stress about finding the perfect outfits (which were always inappropriate for a Midwest-winter evening,) overspend on tickets for the trendiest club, and spend the night overindulging on cocktails while perusing the room hoping to meet “Mr. Wonderful.”

From what I faintly recall from those years, her words were more accurate than I wanted to admit, but it wasn’t until many years later that I couldn’t expel them from my mind as I sat on my mom’s bed next to her as she whimpered, “I just want to die.”

This was supposed to be the NYE that I had really dreamed of back in my 30’s. I’d spend a quiet night at home making a fabulous dinner with my fiancé, playing with our two-year-old son, reading through our “Jar of Joy” I created throughout the year, and most likely finishing off a bottle (or two) of wine before the ball dropped at midnight.

Instead, I got a call from my dad saying Mom had asked for me.  She had a routine procedure earlier that day, an endoscopy, to determine why she’d recently had trouble swallowing. After living multiple states away from my parents for most of adulthood, I was happy to drive 10 minutes to see how I could help.  Dinner and the perfect NYE could wait an hour.

I was met at the door by my often “the glass-is-half-empty” kind of dad.  He had a look of worry that I hadn’t seen before and was holding an obscure photo that resembled a small, black hole inside a glistening, pink, fleshy blob.

“It doesn’t look good,” he said. The doctor said he couldn’t even get to her stomach. It’s closing up.”

I walked into the room and saw my mom curled up on top of the bed, clenching tissues in one had and a trash can in the other.  As much as I hoped my dad was exaggerating the situation, I immediately knew something was wrong.  My always strong mom – the tough, farm girl who had a root canal without Novocain and swallowed jellied pigs’ feet without flinching – never got sick, and when she did, it never took her out like this.

A few weeks later, two months before my wedding she patiently waited 44 years to see, we finally got answers. The breast cancer she so valiantly conquered 21 years earlier at the age of 43, had returned to her stomach. This time, there was no surgery or treatment that could help her.

That NYE did foreshadow the year for me, spending it at my mom’s side.  It was my turn to be the caregiver to the woman who raised me, helped me relocate around the country numerous times, nursed me through my own surgeries, and was in the delivery room when my son was born.

For nine months, I rationed unimaginable doses of medicine, filled a feeding tube, cleaned up stomach bile, counted breaths as she slept to make sure they still existed, and searched for every moment worthy of a photograph to hold on to those memories. At night, I went back to my own home full of gratitude for the hugs she could still give, the outpouring of support from friends, and the husband and son patiently waiting there for me, but bitter and resentful of those not feeling my same pain.

Exactly one year from what I thought was my worst NYE, I was with my family in a small hotel room in Western Kansas.  Once again there was no uncorking of champagne or recalling the year’s happiest memories.  This time, we were preparing to meet relatives and old friends gathering to give their last respects to my mom who passed away days earlier.

New Year’s Eve will forever be a paramount holiday for me.  One that brings back an abundance of bittersweet memories and anxiousness for the foreshadowing it may tell.

1. Due to illness this week, I’m resharing my submission previously read during the 2016 Lawrence, KS, production of “Listen to Your Mother” ↩︎