Mom

I just saw a movie called 'Dawn Anna'. It entails the struggle of a single mother who contracts a rare form of cancer and her big struggle towards her road to recovery from the disease. Thats basically the gist of the story. Go watch it if you can.

Anyways, this entry isnt about the movie, it is about my mother. My mom has been struggling with a combination of Gastrinoma and Carcinoma - 2 rare cancer forms for the past 3 years. From diagnosis till today, her life has been filled with numerous surgeries, procedures, scans, tests, pain, doctor appointments, hospital stays and medications by the bus load. Parts of her intestines, stomach, gall bladder, spleen etc have been removed to try and halt the progress of the cancer. To further increase all her suffering, she has been recently diagnosed as having Parkinson's disease due to trauma from major surgery.

There have been days, usually right after a major surgery, where I have been afraid to go to sleep or to wake up in the morning because I was afraid that something drastic might have happened to my mom while I was asleep. I have sat outside the operation theatres in a morbid state of fear for more times than I would like to remember. My mother has spent a month in a row, violently throwing up bitter green bile after a surgery, these were the times when she could hardly lift herself off the bed without help from someone. At one point in time, she was refusing food because she just didnt want to throw up. Once, I was helping her up from the sofa and it was a bit difficult because the sofa seat was sunken in, my mom got so frustrated with herself that she just started crying in my arms because she felt so helpless.

You know what the most miserable part for me is? Although I can see her suffer and see her in pain, there is nothing I can do to help her at all. It hurts so much deep inside that when all of it overwhelms me, I cry myself to sleep at night. When I see her hand shaking uncontrollably, it feels as if someone is throwing arrows right at my heart. She has always been a very independent woman and she is the one who kept her family running before getting married to my father. Why such blows for her?

Whenever I pray at home or at the temple, i automatically start getting choked up with tears and I end up sobbing my eyes out. Why must all this happen to my mom? And why doesnt God even give me the power to give her everything her heart desires and keep her happy? I wish I had the money to take her to a few nice places for holidays. I wish I had a car to drive her around as she pleases, to go shopping or to meet her friends for a chat and coffee. I wish I could buy her a big house with a big garden. I wish I can employ maids so that my mom doesnt have to lift a finger to do housework. I wish I could make her proud by getting a degree. I wish I could just make all her worries go away.

I just want to make her happy, is that too much to ask? But life is never very fair isnt it.
Its very painful for me to see all that she is undergoing and to give her the strength when I am being torn apart inside. This is living hell, there can be no pain bigger than the torture I am going through right now. I just love my mom so much, that if it was possible, I would gladly suffer in place of her with a smile on my face.