I recently lost my mom to cancer. She was diagnosed in January and died in February, shortly after her 53rd birthday. I was in Florence, Italy when I found out, going about my daily life as usual. Then she told me that the cancer was everywhere and the world stopped spinning. I jumped on a plane with my 4 year old and came back to the States as quickly as I could, thinking that I would be coming back to spend time with her and help her fight for her life. The real situation could not have been more different than what I had imagined it would be.

When I got back to my home town and to my aunt’s house where we had to stay for a couple of days to make sure we were over our colds, my mom had to go to the hospital. She was there for a few days, so it didn’t seem like a problem. My mind was a mess and we had just uprooted our routines to come back to the unknown, for an unknown period of time and we needed a couple of days to process. When it was time to go back to the house, which belonged to her boyfriend and in which she lived, I was shocked by the transformation. She was no longer really talking and was on oxygen from the collapse of one lung, with the other studded with tumors. She had to use a walker to slowly and painfully move. For the next couple of days, before she went into the hospital for the last time, I was in complete stress mode, worrying that something would happen and I wouldn’t know how to handle it. It was clear that the situation was beyond our capacity to handle and she really needed to be where doctors and nurses could take care of her.

In the middle of the night a couple of days after I came back to the house, she couldn’t get enough oxygen and was slowly suffocating. We called 911 and they arrived in only a few minutes, which was surprising considering the fact that my hometown is in the middle of nowhere. Her oxygen was dangerously low and they took her off within minutes. It was the last time she would ever see her house. I won’t go into all of the details of the time that followed, but suffice it to say that it was brutal. I had read how situation like these can tear families apart, and ours was no exception. Divisions were created and ugliness ensued. It is something that we will need to recover from for a long time.

When it became clear that the chemo/radiation were no longer helping, and she became paranoid, ripping out her IV’s and swearing that the doctors and nurses were trying to kill her and refusing her meds and all food, we were told that the end was coming and it was time to move to comfort care. I was the person she elected to make medical decisions in the case that she was no longer able, and although we all agreed on the course of action, it was the hardest decision I have ever had to make.

I stayed at the hospital with her day and night for the last 3 days, knowing the end could come at any minute. Family and friends came through to say their goodbyes and let her know it was okay to go (she was in a deep sleep for the last day and a half). The nurse on duty said that sometimes people wait for certain people, or prefer to go when nobody is there, so we would all step out and take a walk from time to time, but she kept hanging on. Finally, her oldest friend came and we all left her to give them some privacy, and she sat by her bed and talked to her and within 15 minutes she came running out yelling “get a nurse!” and we all ran in and I saw my mom open her eyes and take her last breath. It is an image that is seared into my mind and one that will haunt me forever.

I broke down and cried harder than ever in the moments after, but I haven’t really cried since then. I keep waiting for the storm to hit, for the big breakdown/realization to come crashing down on me, never knowing if the moment right after death was the worst of it, or if there is more to come. Little things make me sad, or tear up every now and then, but I haven’t let it envelop me completely. I have reservations about meeting new people or developing ties because I know for certain that everything ends. I have only seen the closest of my friends and family and that has been just right, for now. The experience has knocked the dust off of all of the elements that make up my life and shown me very clearly that there is too much lurking around that simply doesn’t matter. People who bring no joy or too much pain, worries and stress that doesn’t need to be there, ideas about what life should be that is clearly not important.

The purpose of my telling this is not to elicit sympathy, or pity but to underline how very short this life is and how much of it is wasted on things that do not matter in the end. I think the very best lesson I can take from the experience of losing my mother, who waited and waited to really start living, is to pare down to the simplest and most important people, things and ideas and live completely and to the best of my ability with joy and freedom from those imagined burdens. One of my new favorite films, which I just saw recently and could not have come to me at a better time is Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium in which Dustin Hoffman’s kooky character tells Mahoney (played by Natalie Portman), “Your life is an occasion. Rise to it”.

Life is an occasion, and it is a choice every single day whether we live it, or let it pass by. In the wake of death, despair and loss I have realized that it is time to rise, and shine. It is the most true and important gift I can give to my mom, the world and myself, and I plan to be present for my own life so that at the end I know for certain that not one precious breath was wasted.