There are so many trite catch phrases that get casually tossed around the verbal playing field and, usually, at the most inappropriate of times. I've heard it said that there has to be some type of Murphy's Law that states when one area of your life is going well, another inevitably begins to unravel like so much fragile thread. This is one phrase that I’m bound to agree with – experience has taught me to always keep your eyes open, but, even so, sometimes you still get blindsided.
Things had been going so well for me in both my personal and professional life that when my mother went to the doctor one evening for a few tests, I didn’t think too much of it. The previous doctor she had seen had already mentioned that my mother was most likely suffering from an ulcer in her throat from her acid reflux. Why worry, I asked myself as I sat outside at her house watching her dogs since she would be gone for the entire day. She was already on medication for acid reflux and, honestly, if that’s what the doctor said it was…
A little after one o’clock I got the phone call from my father that I had been anticipating – he was going to call when they were leaving the doctor’s office so that I would know when they were coming home. Instead of this news, I was instead greeted with something far worse – cancer. It wasn’t an ulcer like the previous physician had suspected. It was tumor so large that my mother could barely swallow solid foods.
Have you ever wondered how you would react to some dire situation? Would you be the hero? Would you be the weeping maiden, falling to your knees and sobbing your heart out in some Gone with the Wind dramatic rip-off? I always thought I would wind up being the person to curse and rant, glower at the heavens and demand an answer. Why? I have no idea. Perhaps because I have a temper the size of the Grand Canyon, but it gets unearthed so rarely that when I finally get angry it’s a doozy of a scene. I didn’t do any of these things as I hung up the phone. Instead, I sat down on the white lawn chair outside in the back yard with my mother’s two dogs at my feet and looked at the grass and trees. The sun was so bright out and everything was a brilliant green. So much so that I expected the grass tips to sparkle like diamonds. How could everything be so very green and dazzling when only a moment ago it looked like a normal day to me?
The next few weeks were a jumble of doctor visits and rearranging work schedules. Out of all this chaos, my mother was the most (and still is the most) serene. I remember coming over to visit one afternoon and sitting on the back porch steps with her. It couldn’t have been any later than seven in the morning. The early dew was still coating the wooden planks and thus soaking through the seat of our jeans. We sipped coffee and watched the dogs go about their sleepy meanderings in the yard.
My mother said to me that she had always wanted her house to feel like her grandmother’s – my great grandmother whom we called Maw Maw. Maw Maw’s house, my mother explained, was a place of peace and memories. It felt like home – both ours and God’s. Mom said she had always wanted people to be able to walk into her house and feel God just like you could when visiting Maw Maw. I assured her that our family home was indeed like that. There is a settled peace between those walls that I have not found anywhere else. Perhaps that is the case for most children in their mother’s house – if they have good relations, of course. I’m not for certain.
My mother said to me, perhaps because I looked worried or concerned, that she was fine. She had her faith in God and that whatever He planned for her, she would follow and do.
This was at the end of July and her chemo and radiation therapy were just around the corner. She finished the treatment at the end of last month – it’s not something I will go into detail on. She has lost so much weight from the intensity of it. I am not a large woman and never have been. I barely exceed five feet and three inches. I weigh in at a hundred and ten when I step up on the scale. But, when I hug my mother now, I feel like a giant and it’s a horrible feeling to be bigger than someone that was once the center of your life – that could, in your child’s mind, move mountains with her fingertips.
) before leaving. 
