Avoiding Grief

My mom has cancer.

Yeah, I know you are all thinking, yeah, we know already. I talk about it all the time. It feels like it is all I ever talk about. Sometimes I think it might be all I ever think about too. I feel like the rest of the world probably thinks I should get over it. Maybe not "over it" but...deal with it better at least. I mean she has had cancer now for 10 years so you would think I might be used to it by now. And I am almost 40 years old so you could think I might be able to cope by now. But...yeah not so much.

Maybe if I was more "normal" and had done the fallen in love, or been fallen in love with, and gotten married bit and had my 'own' family now I wouldn't be so paralyzed by this. Maybe the problem is that my mom is still my primary family - and my best friend. I don't know though. I can't really imagine ever not being completely undone by this news.

I was dating a guy once and I ended things with him, it just wasn't really going anywhere, but he was quite upset and said some pretty nasty things to me. One was that I was wasting my life spending so much time with my family. What? I mean seriously if I had any doubts about ending things they disappeared after I heard that.I might sometimes wish my life had played out differently but I have never wished that I were less close to my parents! I have never anything been less than amazed and thankful at the relationship I have with them.

Anyway. That was a bit of a tangent. Back to the point - my mom has cancer. So I have realized that one of the things I have been doing because of that is avoiding grief. I am afraid of it. I mean there are the obvious things like I don't watch movies where I know people are going to die from cancer. Yeah...thanks anyway. I think most people who have loved ones fighting cancer probably do that. But then I started to realize that I have also stopped watching pretty much anything I know, or even think will be sad. Who wants to be intentionally sad anyway right? (well I mean me in the past but...okay). And just recently it hit me that I am avoiding it all. Anything sad and I turn the other way. I want nothing to do with it. Especially real people - with real pain and real grief. I can't handle it.

That isn't really me. I am an empathetic person and I like to help. It is who I am and what I do. I kind of thrive on crisis. Or I used to. You need a place to stay? Stay with me. You need food, I will feed you. You need to get somewhere, we put your ticket on my credit card. You need to cry, come cry to me. These things inevitably get me in trouble...doesn't matter. I do them anyway. Not right now though. I tend to shy away right now. I think I am afraid that I am so close to grief myself that if anyone elses' touches me I will burst. The last thin layer of anything like holding myself together will break and I will lose it. How can I help someone if I am loosing it?

Yesterday I "confessed" to being a horrible friend and not calling someone who had lost a son. He wasn't just her son. He was part of the youth group I worked with in college. One of my kids. A group I hold so dear to my heart I cannot even describe it. He is the second member of that group to die within about a year. I am devastated by this. The truth is I didn't think I could talk to his mother without loosing it myself. How selfish is that?! I am ashamed. Then last night after I posted about it, that same night I saw online that his funeral was today. I went this morning. I saw her and we cried together. I did lose it, but I lost it with her. I embraced my grief and hers. It was good. I saw his two sisters, both of whom were in youth group too and it was good. It was good to grieve together.

I do not know what tomorrow will bring. I do not know how long cancer will continue to plague my mother or what it will ultimately cost us. I know I have to learn to stop pulling away so much though. I cannot assume the worst constantly. I cannot shy away from the bad all the time, and I cannot avoid grief. The truth is I grieve for my mom now. I grieve for our lives without cancer. I grieve for the days when she was not sick and hurting, and we were not all worried and wondering. But I have to learn to balance that grief with the immense relief and joy of life and of having her here. I think my family actually does do that pretty well. We enjoy one another and life whenever we can. But I have to learn to do the same with those around me. I cannot be afraid to watch a movie because it might end sad, and I cannot avoid those I love because they might bring out my own sadness.  I cannot hide from the world because it is hard, though these days I often feel I want to. The truth is being sad together is the only way any of us will ever survive grief.