Life is a cycle. We’re told that we’re born, we grow up, go to school, maybe go to college, maybe meet someone, get married to that someone, have children with that someone, watch our parents grow old, we grow old, when we are old we watch our parents die, then we watch our children grow, and the cycle repeats. That is how I was taught life was going to be for me. That was not how life turned out. My cycle was broken and I have achieved only four of those and two were ones I had no choice: being born and growing up. If life were a play, some tall person in front of me decided to open a nice crinkling pack of candy, interrupting the rest of how I see the play. I am so bothered by this person I cannot seem to watch the play with peace.
The month of my 18th birthday (July 2015) it was discovered that my mother had a brain tumor. Days before my birthday, she had a life or death surgery to remove it. It was a successful procedure, and so we believed that tumor was but a blimp in what was going to be a long and prosperous life for our tight family of 5. For 3 years, it was. My parents travelled the world, I went to college, and my family was what everything in life was supposed to be: happy. In April of 2018, they found a recurrence. Right before my 21st birthday (July 2018) my mother entered Hospice care. By August 8th, she had passed away.
Everyone said being 19 and 20 are the worst years because they are “throw away” years. To me, they weren’t. In retrospect to my mother that time was a gift for her. They were two years to visit the world, visit her children, and love her husband. How were we to know? The cycle of life had lead me to believe they were throw away years, and by 21 I would be drinking wine in California with my mother, and by 31 I would be trying on a wedding gown with her. I did not get these moments. I did have many moments with my mother that now I feel I overlooked, but that is what life does to us. We are so worried about the future, or the past that we forget the present.
Every time I get into an Uber or a Lyft now, it is not just a ride, but a time where I think. I will never see this driver again most likely, and they, myself. We may meet again one day passing by in the street, but we will have no idea we had this connection at one point. At the very moment I get into my rides, I think to myself, ‘They have no idea of my life, and I, theirs’. It would be weird to ask, so I just sit wondering. Do they have a family? Criminal record? A love? Someone at home that is dying much like my mother was? Do they just drive to feel company?
The summer that I was a caretaker for my mother, the times that I found peace in my life were when I went to the supermarket. I would of course have someone at home with her, but at the supermarket, the world continued to move on. No one had any idea that I was taking care of my dying mother, and completing interviews for internships that would shape my life before my last semester of college. No one had any idea, and I felt like I was supposed to feel as a 20 year old. Just going shopping.
In reality, I wasn’t just shopping like other people my age. I didn’t get to go to the mall with my mother to pick out what outfit I would interview with for my next job, or a new pair of earrings for my graduation or even getting dinner with my mom. It was buying adult diapers as my mother’s incontinence increased while her health declined. It was buying food to make dinner for my mom and family. Looking back, I almost wish I still had that sad opportunity, because it meant that I would be returning home to my mom.
The Shoprite in Garwood New Jersey now gives me feelings of the summer, and how this strange once almost tranquil place is just a store that makes me miss my mother. Now, there is not even a chance that I will run into someone and be able to say, “My mom is at home” or “This is happening at home” which were cries for help. They were calls to say ‘This is not normal, and I feel alone, and I want someone to feel with me’.
My family felt with me, but not the way I felt. I wanted to be sad, and for people to feel bad this was happening. My mother and my family did not want that. They were much stronger. I pretended I didn’t want people to feel bad for us either, which in turn made me feel worse. It felt like I told people I wanted something I didn’t. Truthfully, I wanted people to feel bad and to help me. I felt selfish, and in turn worse. So I went along with what my family wanted me to feel. Note to self: not being honest with those around me was worse than feeling what I thought people wanted me to feel.
I sit and write this book as to share to the world, you’re not alone. The people in my stories are real and they deserve their own books. Maybe I am writing this to ease my own depression. Maybe I am writing this to feel that when I die, I will be remembered for something. Left my mark.
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