Just a little disclaimer before I begin, I love my mom. She rocks my socks 99% of the time as long as we are not fighting over her obsessive workout habits or who has to walk the dog. She also did manage my entire skating team which was 21 teenage girls so what you're about to read is the perspective of a needy 5th grade girl. Just wanted to make that clear before I rant about life as a middle child with a mom in the cancer profession.
Cancer took over my mom’s entire life (not to mention the lives of our entire family) – but unlike the way it affects a patient. It devoured her time like a hungry kid with a hamburger. It consumed her time, her thoughts, and most importantly, the attention she gave me. Was the “stupid” job cooler than cute little me? Little me thought of course there was no way.
Flashback to my mother-less 5th grade graduation, a memory I will never let her live down. Poor, neglected me came home and my mom was waiting there with Chinese food as if nothing was wrong. Yeah right, mom, you can't get off that easy. 5th grade graduation is a big deal whether you think so or not. Did she not love me or something? Was work more fun than seeing 300 kids walk on a stage? Nope, there's no way. Graduation is so fun...she definitely liked work more than me.
I kept track of everything she missed from kindergarten until high school: the soccer games, the Hebrew school family events, the field trips, the mother-daughter Girl Scout activities. Where was she when I was in the emergency room over Christmas break? Working of course. What was so important that she couldn’t hang out with me? Look at these faces, how did she ever leave home?
I resented my mom’s “stupid” job for most of my childhood. Maybe I was being dramatic but it seemed pretty rational at the time. She obviously didn’t mind waking up in the middle of the night to go into the hospital. She obviously didn’t mind being home alone on Christmas taking care of patients.
One day I was rummaging through her phone like any normal, nosy child and found this picture:
Among the pictures of my dog, and then more of my other dog, and a couple hilarious selfies she had sent to me in the past year was this picture: three of the cutest ladies I had ever seen in matching Betty Boop suits. These patients were who my mom was ditching me for… no wonder. These women stopped at WalMart every year for five years on the way to come see my mom. They bought new matching outfits each time just to put a smile on her face. I had never seen this part of the job.
I had seen my mom upset from a patient passing; I had seen my mom passed out on the
couch with her favorite child (aka the dog) from a long day or midnight visit to the operating room. I had seen her constantly working extra hours on weekends "off." What I had failed to see for a long time was why. Why she worked twice as hard as any other parent I Knew; why she kept going back and trying her hardest just to face defeat and sadness; why she had missed my super important 5th grade graduation.
These strong women in their Betty Boop jumpsuits were the reason my mom’s alarm went off at 4 AM every morning (so she could work out and be at work by 7… I told you she was obsessive). These women with smiling faces were the reason my mom has stared cancer in the face every day for the past 25 years.
It took me a shamefully long time to realize that it was stupid of me to get upset with her over a missed soccer game (especially because I was horrible at soccer). She was helping people in a way that most others could not. She sacrificed her life, her sanity, her time, AND my graduation to treat a 28-year-old with a young daughter; to save the uterus of a woman that would give anything to have a baby; and to see three women in Betty Boop jumpsuits smiling even though they were in a hospital about to receive treatment.
She has attacked cancer with scalpel, robot, chemotherapy, and her mind a thousand times over. I relay for my mom and her super-ninja skills in and out of the operating room. She’s crazy and ~crazy passionate~ about fighting to find a cure. I guess she’s rubbed off on me a little.
RelayLove,
