It's the middle of the night, between January 12th and January 13th, and it was at this exact time, 4 years ago, that my grief truly began.
I was texting with my mom who was in the ER trying to learn why she suddenly couldn't catch her breath during continuous fits of coughing. With every text update, my worry grew. I woke up my husband in the middle of the night out of fear when my mom told me she had fluid in her lungs. I even said in a panic, "what if it's cancer!?" And although he tried to tell me not to jump to an extreme like that, I knew enough about the body and the medical world to know that fluid needing to be drained from her lungs wasn't good.
And it was only a few short hours and barely any sleep later that my mom broke the news to me... Tumours. Lots of them. In both lungs. And yes... cancer.
January 13th is mom's (unofficial) diagnosis day. And it's a day stuck in my memory that's as painful as the day she died. It was the day my whole world turned upside down.
Although we clung to hope until the day she died 9 weeks later, this particular day was full of tears, fear, and some of the worst gut-wrenching pain imaginable. Every single terrible thought I could have spiraled about Mom's future, and about mine, ran through my head. Even now, my body remembers this day and those thoughts and feelings. It was the first time in my life I had ever realized and digested the idea that my mom wouldn't live forever, and it was terrifying.
I spent the rest of the day with my family, crying off and on. During the "off," I was just pretending that the news hadn't hit me... or maybe my body didn't have any tears left to fall. I couldn't believe it... not MY mom. My health-nut of a mom - the one who ate lettuce instead of a burger bun because it was healthier for her, or that texted me in the middle of my work day saying, "get your butt up, it's time for our (virtual) work out." Cancer isn't supposed to touch those people. Cancer happens to OTHER people... not MY people.
But no... actually, cancer doesn't care. It doesn't care how young you are, or how loved you are. It doesn't care that you have so much life to live. Cancer doesn't care if you have a daughter who will eventually have a daughter herself one day... a daughter who needs her mom.
I really hate January 13th... a day stuck in my head as one of my top 3 worst days ever.
But... as I've done with Mom's death day, I've tried hard to mark the really hard days with something positive. That is why today is also the 2 year anniversary of launching this blog. It felt important to me that I published it on this particular day to take something that broke me to try and turn it into something that might help put me back together again. My goal with this blog - Heartfelt Healing - was for it to be healing for me, and maybe even others. It was an opportunity for me to get these true, honest, raw, heartfelt thoughts and feelings out of my body and give them a place to go.
January 13th will forever be the day I began grieving my mom and the life I once had, but also the day I intentionally opened a new chapter in my healing.
To anyone navigating a day that split their world into "before" and "after"... I see you.
P.S. You can read my first post from Diagnosis Day written on January 13, 2024 here
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