i was so proud of the strides she was taking to care about her health and her life. it was beautiful. cancer sucks.

my mom wasn’t the easiest person to deal with, she was demanding, she was very specific about her needs, but didn’t really listen to yours. she was tough on us, she was paranoid and accusatory, you could never do enough to please her and then she would turn around and tell you how proud of you she was.

i remember “talking” to mom every thursday on my commute from livermore to aptos. she would talk the entire time, usually about an hour and a half of hearing about what was going on in her life, or gossip, or what was on television at the time…then she got sick and she stopped talking. that is when i knew that things had changed forever.

my mom fought a battle, and ugly battle for 18 months. she let them pound her body with any type of chemo combination they could muster up in hopes of getting back to that new life she was building. it was brutal, she was rendered lifeless, sitting in a chair, feeling unimaginable pain and sickness for almost two years. she chose not to try any holistic options and just giving herself up to the healthcare system that failed her in the first place.

there were heroes in this story, my aunt was there for her whenever she could be despite her failing heath, my uncle was there next door to provide support, to try to get her to eat, to argue with her, and to put up with her abuse in her very saddened state. there was also her friend nancy that took her to all of her chemo sessions, helped her pay her bills, listen to her, or maybe just talk, i don’t know, i was so far away.

after 18 months, my mother made the conscious decision to stop her chemo. she died 3 weeks later. the last week of her life i was at the hospice hanging out in her room every day, it was strange, she was frustrated with the care and agitated with the nurses all the time. irritated with my uncle and i talking about her in the room, even asked us to leave one day, so we decided that i would go alone for the rest of the week. she had moments of clarity, mostly the last day where she was sweet and kind to me, we talked about silly things, like her playing softball, little house on the prairie, fortune telling, card games, we ate a mcdonalds hamburger together…always her favorite fast food.

thats all i have to say right now, she left this world on easter sunday 2012. i will miss her forever.

highway 81 was solid with traffic, so i decided to hit “detour” on the ol’ garmin. i had a little tour of of scranton and the surrounding areas on the “blue detour” route.

the house lined streets of peeling tar shingle roofs…some with barely a roof left, aluminum and plastic siding falling down, even old tar shingle siding on these homes. shops with sales signs made with sharpie pens, irish pubs with for sale signs, closed down factories, abandoned with broken windows…

and in almost every yard, what do you see? a flag, a cross, a virgin mary, or any number of saints, christopher predominantly. what is america doing for these people, for this economy of coal miners and factory workers, who’s jobs are gone, who can’t take care of their homes, who can’t feed their families. even more so, what is god doing for them? these people believe stronger in god and country than any where i have been in my life…where is their reward? when can they be free of the burdens that bind them to this place?

to the bar on the corner to have some cheap whiskey and a bad beer and numb themselves for one more day. to feel that comfort come over them and to taste a glimmer of hope, if just for a few hours. Then pass out in bed and start the next day looking for work to feed themselves and their families, and their elderly parents…

feels like the land that god and america forgot…frozen in time.

By wood and stone, by wind and fire,
by land and water,

I bring you in.

We worship the
ancient forces of nature.

The Great Mother, the Triple Goddess
and the Horned One, God of the Hunt.

Death does not part,
only lack of love.

And the vow is forever.

Posted via email from karmahappens’s posterous

Posted via email from karmahappens’s posterous

Posted via email from karmahappens’s posterous

who do you want to be?
i want to be a woman that loves herself. a woman that tempers selfishness and selflessness. a woman that is remembered for the beauty that she saw in the people and places that she loved.

what do you want to be?
alive…more than anything else. owning every moment of this beautiful life. open mind, open arms, open heart. love…real. its all i can be.

how do you want to be?
full of passion, the passion to never fear the future, the passion to process that i am organic, the passion to embrace what i love. there is no other way, my mind does not process life’s challenges with out passion.