housewives
My mother’s recent cancer diagnosis turned us into the type of mom and daughter that talk every day. Sometimes I feel like we’re playing the part of two housewives exchanging recipes or styling tips, but we don’t talk about food or clothes. I ask her how she is and she’s deeply sick but quick to caveat with, “but I’m strong.” And I think, “but is anybody that strong?” Then, she fades because she’s tired in a way that you can only be when your body is dying. She comes back to and asks, “how are you, baby?” and I don’t know how to tell her that her diagnosis has changed more than our relationship, it’s changed my life. So I just say, “I’m good, mama,” because I know that I am, and probably always will be, doing better than she is.
It’s quiet on the line again but I’m still thinking about her. She’s all I can think about. Less than a week ago we sat in two chairs pulled close together, sharing air as I changed her fluids. I was watching her every move, looking for signs of her decline. I felt like her protector. Half asleep, she reached out to hold my hand. It felt almost identical to mine. I wondered how so many years had passed with so few words said. I realized I missed out. We missed out. If this cancer didn’t happen we may have always been a mother and daughter who didn’t really speak, and for good reason. But the cancer, it made us soft to each other. She needed me, so she answered my calls. And I am okay with that because I like her voice.
And now, we have shared not only a body and DNA, but a sickness. We learned that her breast cancer was just as genetic as her need to please people and wear makeup when she leaves the house. I held her and felt how my body would feel in 20 years, wounds and all. We were holding hands and rubbing heads and saying yes to not only each other and all the weird life we have shared, but to ourselves, to my future.