Two months. Two months of watching my mother undergo chemotherapy, followed by radiation therapy. Two months of watching her struggle, watching her energy fade to nothing, watching her try to put on a brave face for the rest of us. Two months of being back home, surrounded by family, by friends, by strangers in hospitals, yet never feeling more alone. Two months seemed like an eternity…
Demi and I had split about a month ago. If not for what my Mom was facing I would say the breakup was the hardest thing I have ever been through. How is it that you can be lucky enough to find your perfect person and yet the world conspires to keep you apart? Demi was the perfect person for me, I was sure of that. My heart wouldn't continue to ache the way it was if it was just a passing fling. Demi had been my world, my heart, my reason for laughing and smiling and so many other wonderful feelings. Demi had accepted me for me from the moment we met, never pushing to change me or have me bend to fit her life. If life was so content to keep us apart I resigned myself to knowing that I would just be single from here on out, for nothing would ever compare to her.
The incessant chimes of my phone interrupted my thoughts, and yet I couldn't locate where the noise was coming from. That was what life was like when a parent is ill, your life plummets into a sort of chaos and nothing ever seems routine or easy. I eventually found it wedged between couch cushions and picked up before the caller hung up.
"Hello, Mom?"
My Mom's weak voice echoed out on the other end.
"I'll be right there," I told her, grabbing my keys and rushing out the door.
My frantic driving and muttered worries on the way over fell away as soon as I heard her say the word 'remission'. A tear trickled down the left side of her face and she managed a faint smile as she surveyed my reaction.
"Why did you make it seem like an emergency, this is great news!" I said, baffled by her behavior.
"I needed to get you down here," my Mom tried to explain. "You have a visitor."
My Mom slowly raised her arm and beckoned for someone outside the hospital room to come in. My eyes tracked the movement and I was sure my mind was deceiving me now. First to hear that my Mom was in remission, and then to see Demi glide into the room; those were my two greatest dreams of late and I was sure that I couldn't really be witnessing them both come true at the same time.
Demi stopped a few steps into the room, smiling first at my Mom and then turning to me. As if in slow motion her eyes finally lifted to meet mine and the twinkle I saw in them immediately brought all my love for her soaring back. For a moment it felt like the two months I thought were an eternity hadn't passed us by at all.
"Hi Grace."