The Moth

Last month I finally worked up the courage to tell a story at the Moth Story Slam. When I originally wrote this story, which was much longer, on my blog Jason suggested it sounded like a moth story but I was scared away when I learned that The Moth is a storytelling event, meaning you can't read a story, you have to tell it and being a person who doesn't really go out any more (and I am pretty content with that) I never had the drive to check out the monthly Moth Story Slam that happens locally until.... I was inspired by KT. KT went to to the Story Slam and told a story and then went again and told another one and had an amazing experience. She said it was the most supportive audience and the most exhilarating experience. I had the story, now I had insider information, I had to give it a try. But reworking a several page story into a 5 minute or less story was trickier than expected. I had to really pull out all my old, dusty English teacher knowledge to get to my point and to trust that I knew this story. It was my story after all. I was there. I didn't have to memorize it, I lived and breathed it. It was a part of me and after spending hours mulling over just the right words or descriptions I couldn't get too hung up on them. I tried to remember the really good lines that made a good point or felt really poignant but otherwise I just had to trust. And the crazy thing is that you don't even know if you're name will get called. There are only ten slots. There were 14 storytellers the night I told my story. I was thrilled to be able to share it and the audience was AMAZING, so supportive. I will go again this Tuesday. Maybe I will see you there?

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My first year of motherhood was the last year I spent with my mother.   

I will never forget my husband’s phone ringing two weeks before my daughter was born. We were sitting in our living room enjoying a Saturday morning, you know like you do before you have kids.  And then Jason’s phone rings and it’s my dad.  1) My dad doesn’t make phone calls, 2) If he did call he would call me, not you. He asked if they could come over.  They needed to talk to us.

My quiet calm of pre parenting life came to a sudden halt.

I went into fear mode. You know how this goes; intense heart pounding out of chest,  pacing around the house, and all that goes through your head is that the world as you know, as you imagined it is ending.

I waited,  panicked yet frozen staring out the kitchen window until they arrived.  All that I heard through my own uncontrollable scared sobs (amplified by my pregnancy hormones) was my mom utter, Cancer.  

Two weeks later I gave birth to my beautiful and inspiring daughter, Addy.  My mom was in the room with me for my entire long labor (4pm through the night) but she had to leave me around 7:30 am pushing to attend her first appointment with her oncologist. When my daughter took her first breaths of life outside the womb my family was in the waiting room ready to greet Addy, armed with love and a prognosis, ready to pretend that we were solely celebrating birth and life and not scared shitless that we were also facing death.

Two days after Addy was born my mom started chemo.  4 months later I brought my baby and  my stroller packed with sandwiches, toys, snacks, diapers, just as my mom would have done, as my mom went in for her surgery to remove her stomach, which is the treatment for stomach cancer along with chemo.   I will never forget holding Addy while getting the news that  the cancer had spread and my mom would have only months to live. I sobbed clutching my baby girl full of love and fear and desperation. My mom was strong and I was deep in sleep deprived denial, my mom couldn't possibly die, not now. She's too young.  And I need her.

My mom was stoic and stubborn a true Italian matriarch who made a mean spaghetti sauce. She lived months longer than her prognosis.  We celebrated my first mother’s day, her 59th birthday.We spent a whole summer indoctrinating Addy on General Hospital. We celebrated crawling, my 29th birthday and Thanksgiving, which my mom hosted. She held our family together even through her sickness. She just didn’t seem sick.  

Addy was an intense baby. She cried a lot which was so challenging given our sleep deprivation and emotional stress. She only wanted me. She needed me intensely like I was holding on to my mom and every possible moment I could be with  her.

When Addy was 10 months old my mom got the flu and she got it again. And then we all knew, it wasn’t the flu. We celebrated Christmas and my mom  insisted she host because that is what she always did.  But she was so sick.

Finally, after the new year she was admitted to the hospital. She couldn’t keep anything down and she was severely dehydrated.   Day in and day out my sister, Addy and I drove down I-94, to downtown detroit, Addy crying the whole way. I hauled my sweet little 11 month old who hated car rides to the hospital because I had no problem solving left in me. She wouldn’t eat solid food or take a bottle and I couldn’t imagine leaving my daughter when I already felt so scared about losing my own mom.

A seemingly competent and nice Dr. finally said surgery was the answer. She  portrayed the surgery as no big deal. And when my mom came out of the surgery we were given the thumbs up! I went home with hope. But at 8pm I got a frantic phone call that we needed to get to the hospital immediately. Mom had coded and was in the ICU.

We swooped Addy out of bed and sped down that familiar I-94 corridor. When we arrived a security guard had to get special permission to let me in with my baby. Who brings their baby with them to the ICU?

When it became clear that my mom was not going to survive without life support, that the cancer had weakened her body so much and the surgery had left her with an untreatable infection we were faced with making the decision to remove care.

We would be deciding  when the monitors would be turned off, breathing tube extracted, IVs removed, except for the morphine. We would decide once we all said goodbye when this would happen. We sat with my mom as her breathing became increasingly shallow. It took longer than I thought for death to come, but I held on to mom’s hand. I wanted her to know that she wasn’t alone.

Addy’s first birthday celebration came just 3 weeks after mom’s death. It was just like her birth, haunted by our despair and sadness amidst a celebration of life, amazement and wonder. I couldn’t help but feel cheated, losing my mom as I began my journey of motherhood was particularly poignant. I had to muster up the courage to celebrate my daughter’s birth with cupcakes, just as mom would have wanted.