My mom passed from cancer a few years back. My folks live about a 10 hour drive from me and I had just started a job that entails almost 24 hour responsibility. For the first year, she seemed to be beating it. Just into the second year, she seemed to get worse, but she insisted that she was going to beat it and she was just fine. Her personality changed a lot in that second year, just wasn't herself. I tried to get back there as often as possible, but I also selfishly didn't go at times that I could have made something work. I talked to her on the phone almost daily, and she was often lonesome for her family to visit. At Christmas time the second year, she was in bad shape. Basically existing on pain pills and barely able to walk. We had to make the decision to put her in hospice care at the nursing home because there is no way that my dad could get her off the floor if she fell, due to his own health problems. That spring, dad called and said that we should come out and see her, because the doctors said she didn't have long. We hurried over and spent time with her. It was hard the last year she was with us, her personality was gone. The cancer had spread to her brain and she was minimally coherent. When she was, she was not at all the mother I had known my whole life. Leaving on that last day was the hardest thing I've done to date. She passed about 3 weeks later. I still feel guilt and sadness for not having done more and not being able to talk with her any longer.
Our last real conversation was when we moved her into the nursing home. I hugged her before leaving for the trip home and she whispered in my ear, "I fought it good, didn't I?" All I could do was hug her a little tighter and nod. She started chemo the day after she retired. Not one day of retirement was hers to enjoy.
