While I Was Out -OR- On Becoming a Grown Up

I knew I wasn't a baby anymore the day I could put my own socks on; I'd always had a little trouble getting them over the heel.

It was the early 70s and I was getting ready for kindergarten, sitting in the middle of my parent's bed … a song about a girl named Ruby was coming out of the tinny clock radio The shadow on the wall // Tells me the sun is going down // Oh Ruby don't take your love to town … and I was straining to get my heel into my sock. My finger was wedged, the sock was tight and cutting off circulation. I was yelling for my mom to come do it for me, come slip on that sock with that magic way she had. Then all of a sudden … POP. My foot was in. I was done. The song was still playing. I was absolutely amazed at my new powers. When mom came in to ask why I was yelling I told her about Ruby. She walked away like it was any other moment, like any other day … but it wasn't. For this one small thing, I didn't need her anymore. Some rites of passage are easy.

The other kind … the hard kind … well, that's the rite of passage I've been going through for the past few months. It's hard to write a blog that centers on frivolity when your days are centered on trying to figure out what life is all about.

Throughout my whole relationship with Quibbit I'd been distracted by how sick his mom Cindy was. She'd been diagnosed with breast cancer just a few months after we'd started dating and by the time I made it to his home town in Michigan for that first visit she greeted us in a wig – all her hair gone from radiation and chemo. Still, her smile was wide, and her eyes were bright with excitement at meeting me. Her huge heart made it easy to forget her wig ... and what having to wear one really meant.

When she went into remission it was a short victory and then it was a long un-victory as she realized she hadn't beaten this awful disease at all. She had, of course, hidden the worst from the ones she loved best, and by doing so ripped the band aid off quickly in the end, when it was too late for anyone to understand what was happening with enough time to make sense of it. Although, really, no amount of time would have ever been enough to make sense of it.

As time went on Cindy's illness was around me all the time, you couldn't take about her without thinking in terms of months or years … well, really just months. She called Quibbit one afternoon with concerns about how all TVs would have to be digital in 2009, but all I could think was ... "Will she be around long enough?" Every day, little things like that popped into my head. When setting a wedding date we chose the fall, just 8 months away ... hoping of course but still wondering Will she be around long enough?

I called Cindy optimistic to the point of delusion. I couldn’t tell if she really didn't find her illness all that daunting, or if she just recognized it and then decided to forget that she recognized it. (I think it was the latter; Cindy had been a nurse for all of her adult life. She had seen. She knew.) Whichever one … we found out about the cancer spreading to her bones and liver in an aside during a regular conversation. She might have been talking about an eye exam.

When we found out about the brain tumors we decided to go visit for Christmas. The fact that it took forever to get there was more tragic than a loss of time. For Quibbit, who saw his mom so infrequently, it was a loss of the balance of his mother's days.

Sitting with her one morning as she laughed gaily about this and that, serving up a breakfast that seemed to never end, she seemed particularly alive, in a way that only a dying person can seem. Her zest was unwavering, and she pulled out every ounce of herself in that trip, knowing that even it wasn't the last Christmas with her son, it was the next to last. How do you reconcile a visit that is saturated with the fact that this may be the last time that everything is normal?

Two months later, when Quibbit and I got engaged, Cindy was thrilled -- of all the parents, she was the happiest and the one looking most forward to having me as part of the family. When we called her on the cab ride home that night he joy leaped through the phone lines.

When my mom and dad spoke with her on the phone a few weeks later, Quibbit had high expectations of everyone getting along and laughing about things they found they had in common. He expected the conversation to go on for hours; of course I think it squeaked by at just under 5 minutes. Granted, everyone was a virtual stranger and miles away, not expecting to meet each other before the wedding, and not expecting to see much of each other after that. I think Cindy would have liked that to have been different. I think she would have liked a lot of 2008 to be different.

During the phone call my dad asked her if she was coming to the wedding. Unsaid were things like "if you're well enough to travel" … and of course anything past that.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world," she said.

I wouldn't miss it for the world.

Late April Quibbit was on the phone with his sister and suddenly the truth came out; there had been doctor's visits and the news was bad. Three months, if nothing went wrong, three months for Cindy to live. If nothing went wrong.

Quibbit, always so calm and good, always the one to talk me off the ledge as I let things spin out of control, sat in his office and went numb; he never asks me for anything but that day he asked me to come get him and take him home.

We sat in a diner near my house and talked about what his sister had said; what was true, what was conjecture, what was speculation. Cindy had insisted that the news had been mis-conveyed – that three months was a worst case scenario, not a best. If someone could change anything with sheer force of will, this would have been one of those times.

There was a lot of crying. A lot of dark moments, a lot of existentialism. How do you reconcile your life when you're told you've got 3 months to live? How do you process that information? How do you admit that you're not ready? How do you say goodbye?

So much of the wedding plans were done with Cindy in mind; I wanted her to have a trip to New York that not only showed the excitement, joy, and rush of the city, but also one that reflected the life her son had created so far away from their little Michigan town. I wanted her to see how we lived. I wanted her to know.

We planned to go there for Mother's Day which fell on Quibbit's birthday this year, but then got a call. Things were bad. The liver cancer had turned Cindy jaundiced and she was being rushed to the hospital, 2 hours away. The doctor advised that if we were going to go … we should get going. We arrived on Sunday, May 4^th.

On May 8^th I sent out this note:

Last night, on May 7th, at around 9:00pm Quibbit's mother Cindy passed away. As many of you may know, she had been battling breast cancer which eventually spread to her liver, bones and brain.

Quibbit had gotten a call just 2 weeks ago that his mom's cancer was advancing very aggressively and that a new tumor had been discovered in her brain stem. The prognosis was 3 months.

Quibbit and I made plans to visit Cindy for Mother's Day, but by last weekend phone calls from his family confirmed that Mother's Day might be too late; so we arrived here on Sunday night instead.

Cindy was at Saint Mary's Cancer Treatment Hospital in Grand Rapids, just a few miles away from where Quibbit's married sister lives. The first night we got there Cindy was weak but still very engaged, and so happy to see us. We were able to show her photos from the night Quibbit proposed to me, and share some stories with her. She was tired, but happy. Still, we were told that the cancer was advancing rapidly, and we could see signs of that.

On Monday night Quibbit and I held an Intention Ceremony at Cindy's bedside; the Pastor came and did a blessing on our intention to marry, and we closed it with Cindy's blessing and a shared prayer. It broke our hearts to know that she wouldn't be able to make the trip to New York City and enjoy the wonderful party we're planning. It meant a lot to her to be able to participate in our marriage, and we were so happy to be able to do a ceremony before she began to fade even more.

On Tuesday Cindy was transported to the Faith Hospice, also in Grand Rapids. The space was beautiful, peaceful and filled with a caring, comforting staff. By the time Cindy was settled in she was only able to speak in short sentences.

The family gathered around her, sharing stories, singing her favorite hymns, sometimes being quite in the dark, and sometimes having joyful, lively conversations for her benefit since she was always so social and loved a good gathering. Even though she was now only able to indicate "yes" and "no" with some noises, she was still able to respond with laughter when I told a funny story in a broad southern accent. Hearing that laughter meant the world to me, and showed just how strong her spirit was, despite how weak her body was growing.

By yesterday it was clear that she could only hang on a few hours longer; Quibbit had sat beside his mother's bed all night long, comforting her, giving her whatever she needed and sleeping when he could. As we took turns keeping vigil it was hard to see her growing weaker and weaker ... hard to know that she herself was going through a period of transition which was frightening her. We all did what we could to make the journey easier for her.

By last night Quibbit and his sister were singing the hymns Cindy had picked out for her funeral, and she was facing them ... her breath shallow, her eyes unfocused, but her spirit finding comfort in the sound of her children's voices. It was some time during their singing that she quietly passed away. And while this happened far too quickly than any of us would have wanted, and while the end was very difficult and uncomfortable, I think that she went as gently and as peacefully as any of us could have wished.

It's been hard to get back into the swing of things since coming back home.

It's been hard for me to weigh what matters and yet of course, everything matters. I've been swaying between true sadness and loss and not wanting to plan a wedding at all -- to the other extreme of wanting to have the most joyful, celebratory, huge event of all, because that's what Cindy would have wanted. And ultimately, every day that we're here, alive, at peace, and fully engaged in everyone and everything around us is a day to celebrate.

Things like keeping up with a blog, at least in these last few months, have seemed as insignificant as putting on socks in the morning. And yet, I remember when putting on my socks alone was a huge victory. It was the first thing I remember doing without my mom. And I can't help but see this as another milestone, the tougher kind, but one nonetheless that has always been inevitable. It's meant to be this way -- you do one thing without your mom, and then another, and another, and eventually you must accept having to do everything without your mom.

So I'll put on my socks, and tomorrow I'll do it again, and so will Quibbit. And one day soon, when I walk down that aisle and see Quibbit waiting for me, I'll see his mom sitting in that first row, beaming at us, blessing us, and loving us as much as she can. She may have walked out of the room for a minute, but soon enough she'll join her heart with ours and celebrate all the wonderful gifts we've been given while we're here. And she'll be as beautiful as ever.