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Time As I held my three year old today, tickling her tummy and burying my face in her sweet smelling neck, I wondered if in twenty years she'd be sitting by my bedside, as I sit by my mother's. I wondered if this sweet angel, who's only worries in life now are whether or not her sister got more pudding than she did, will eventually be made to watch as I suffer through the indignities that cancer inflicts upon it's victims, as I now watch it visit those indignities upon my Mother. I have bathed and fed my babies; cared for them with my heart and my soul. Kissed their owies and made them better when I could, buried my face in my pillow and wept when I couldn't. Sitting by their beds and watching them sleep when they were ill was not something I counted as a hardship. I could do no less. Getting up and snuggling into bed with them at night when they weren't sick, just to hold them, brings joy to my soul. Certainly my thirteen year old thinks it's strange of me, but my three year old still enjoys waking up in Mommy's arms. I hope in time that my teenager will come to understand this kind of love. It will simply take time. Time is a funny thing. One day you're the one sitting on your Mother's knee, being tickled, kissed and loved. Turn around and suddenly you’ve acquired a husband, four children and a mortgage. Blink again and something evil has crept into your life and turned it upside down. You're no longer the one being cared for; you are the caregiver. Suddenly the one you leaned on all your years is looking to you for answers, as you once looked to her. Her demeanor is more that of a child, than that of the wise and powerful woman that raised you. You learn to clean your mother as you once kept your babies clean and dry. As you once spoon-fed creamed vegetables into your infant's mouth, knowing it would make her healthy, you now gently encourage your Mother to eat just one more bite. Not that she might grow and be healthy, but that the food might buy her a little more strength to fight the cancer within. As you listened to your babies sleep at night, the sound of their breathing bringing a smile to your sleepy face, you now huddle by your mother's bedside and listen to her ragged breathing as she sleeps, hoping that the last one you heard won't be followed by silence. When the Neurosurgeon has explained that the tumor on her spine has eroded the bone so severely that surgery would require steel rods and pins be implanted in her back lest she be paralyzed, she turns her frightened eyes to you and asks what she should do. You gently tell her it's her decision, even as she cries and tells you she can't make it. You carefully resist making all decisions for her, knowing, as she knew raising you, that making your own decisions were important. You suddenly realize how very much she taught you. I snuggled with my baby today and prayed I will be able to teach her as much as my Mother has taught me. I just hope she doesn't have to use those skills, as I have to use them now.
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