To Everything....

....there is a season.

My exh's mother has been diagnosed with Stage 4 gastric cancer that has metastasized to her bones. A preliminary endoscopic biopsy had come up negative but the doctor, saying he knew he'd seen something, insisted that the test be done again. This result confirmed what he'd seen. The next steps (treatment, pain management, etc.) are dependent upon results from another, more thorough biopsy.

I attended a family meeting last night and stood a little aside from the crowd. Yo had called me and invited me and I was glad she had -- my regard for her grew a little bit more because of it. MIL held court and spoke at some length to her children and her grandchildren. Amongst other things, she told them how proud she was of all of them. She said she hoped she'd been able to help establish strong family ties that would extend past her and keep the family units together. My throat tightened more than once. It was highly emotional, yes, but at the same time it was quiet....and powerful....and comforting.

I wondered what was going through her mind. I wondered what would be going through mine if I found myself in her shoes. Would I handle the knowledge with grace and dignity or would I cower and deny and curl up into a fetal ball of terror? Would I prefer to die instantly to avoid the trauma of the slow loss of control or would I prefer to wrest what little control I had out of what was left of my life? And lastly, as I stood there listening to her soothe her children instead of allowing herself to be soothed....did she realize what a gift it was to have the time with those she loved and assist them and herself in seeking such closure?

I don't know what I'll do when my time comes. I only hope that I'll have half of MIL's courage.

Her children's reactions, however, were what most interested me (pardon me if that sounds clinical, it's not what I intend) and were very indicative of their personalities as well as their historical relationship with their mother. The exh wore his heart on his sleeve. He was emotional at home and became fairly easily choked up during MIL's speech as well as later when he allowed himself to think about it. He adjourned to his brother's house after the speech was over. His brother, meanwhile, was silent -- he's the type to rarely display any emotion but irritation. Of the girls, the eldest was obviously upset but held herself in check -- she'd been through it all once before with the sudden death of one of her teenage sons in an accident four years ago.

The three eldest children weren't too outside the norm, as far as grief goes. The youngest, though -- her reactions were far and away the most interesting to me. Of all the children, the youngest has had the most difficult relationship with her mother for the most years. Being so much alike, the struggle for liberation, control and mutual respect was a roughly fought one. In the last half dozen years or so youngest began to settle into a committed relationship and have children of her own. She was finally grown up enough to look past the mother in her mother and see into the woman.

Youngest had been the one to take MIL to the doctor's appointments and had the most knowledge about what had been said to her during the consultations. Youngest switched into "instruction mode" quite often. Always a way to deal with her insecurities (she's a dozen years younger than the rest of her siblings and felt she was never taken seriously) this is an aspect of her personality that has always slightly annoyed me but it was especially noticeable last night.

Youngest was the one that kept reframing words and phrases others would utter. "Don't talk like it's a done deal," she'd say. "We don't know." Or, "We don't need to talk about all that yet, let's concentrate on getting mom better." The rest of the family would nod and say yes, but all the rest of us know. We might not have the diagnosis on paper yet, but we all know. MIL's been vaguely sick (and in the last year or so, not so vaguely) for the last decade. MIL told me she knew something was wrong and that she chose to be the ostrich and told youngest this. Youngest is just choosing to block her ears.

It's understandable, though.

Youngest is losing a mother she's barely had time to really get to know, adult to adult. There's a sense of deep unfairness in her for that. There's also a deeper wellspring borne of regret for being a stupid kid/teenager/young adult who chose to allow her own feelings of stubbornness and spite to control her behavior and push her mother away instead of hold her close. She thought she'd have years. She doesn't want to have to acknowledge that there's not much more time.

My research on cancer that metastasizes to bone is dire. Even if it's a form of gastric cancer they can treat, and even if they can treat the bones themselves, this sort of cancer is one (if not THE) most painful forms of cancer you can have. Median survival rate even with treatment is 42-67 days from diagnosis.

The next few months will be rough.

((Song: "Turn Turn Turn" by the Byrds. Lyrics here:
http://digitaldreamdoor.nutsie.com/pages/lyrics/byr_turntt.html ))