September 17th

Nine years ago, September was still my favorite month.  Eight years ago it turned into a horror.  This year, it is just September.

September of 2001 was when everything went terribly wrong – an excruciating mixture of intense personal pain and national sorrow.  My beloved little mother was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in the context of the destruction of 9/11.

I remember wondering at the time – as I traveled through the barricades of lower Manhattan and looked out my mother’s bedroom window to where the twin towers used to be – which would be worse:  to have your loved one suddenly taken away by a seemingly random act of violence, or have to watch your loved one leave you through the attack of a powerful disease.  At times  – during the time – I thought it would have been better to have had it happen quickly, although now I am grateful for every moment of every day of the 14 months that followed.

September was always full of birthdays:  my mother’s, my grandmother’s, my great grandmother’s, and mine.  I got my first car in September, we bought our house in September, and there was the excitement of the new school year in September.  But in 2001 other dates were added – the last time she stopped to see me and stroked my head when I was sick, the date neighbors called in concern, the date she ran down construction signs in the highway and didn’t notice, 9/11 – which postponed her doctor’s appt., her final birthday before we “knew,” her exam with her GP, the MRI, the diagnosis confirmed on my birthday, the rush to surgery.  September simply filled with horrors.

And in subsequent years nothing has happened to change the flavor of the month.

2002 was her last birthday and we all knew that her time with us was flowing fast.   It was a lovely sunny day and we sat outside on the grass for presents.  She had always been looking for the “right” gold bracelet – and I gave her a nice chunky one – and a cashmere covered hot water bottle.  She liked her presents, and could express that she did.  She was bloated and puffy sitting on the ground – but happy – at the end it was if the cancer had eaten all the sad and fear and worry and angry parts of her brain along with most of her motor skills and balance and ultimately her speech.  She could still speak and find words in September of 2002 however, and her birthday was a good day for her, and – I see now – for us, too.

In the past couple years I have moved through my heavy grief, helped by realizing that my mother isn’t completely gone – that she still exists in spirit and memory.   But I still miss her tremendously, and often – particularly on anniversaries, and when times are hard, I just hurt, and am sad.