Dear Parents in COVID-19 Quarantine

Dear Parents,

By now, if you weren't already a stay-at-home parent, you probably are, quarantined from the COVID-19 pandemic currently sweeping the world. You might feel like your life has gone straight to hell and that you're never going to make it through this. Your kids might be getting on your very last nerve. Wine has become your best friend and that thing you start looking forward to as soon as your feet hit the floor in the morning.

Sound about right?

Well, get over it. What you're dealing with is difficult, for sure, but I'm here to tell you there is an entire population of parents in this country who are viewing your "horrible plight" and rolling their eyes in disgust. I am one of those parents.

We are the cancer parents. People who have dealt in the past, or are dealing currently, with having a child with cancer. Children whose immune systems are completely shot due to chemotherapy and/or radiation. Parents who know that something as innocent as touching a door knob and then scratching their nose is enough to cause a fever and a week in the hospital on IV antibiotics, praying the entire time that it doesn't get worse and that the antibiotics do what they're supposed to.

My 10-year-old son, Keeghan, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor in 2006. After weeks of intense chemotherapy and 32 whole-brain radiation treatments, all in a span of 6 weeks, his immune system was nonexistent. We were a military family, however, and had to move from Texas to Washington, DC. Two cars, three adults, and a 12-year-old sister managed to get Keeghan moved without ever spiking that dreaded fever. We were an army of Germ Warriors, always ready with hand sanitizer and a hand to lend to open doors so that he stayed free of deadly - yes, DEADLY - germs.

I emphasize that word for a reason. The first funeral I ever attended for a child - and I have been to a few, sadly - was for a 7-year-old little boy. It was not the cancer he was fighting that killed him. No. It was the sepsis he contracted when his immune system had nothing left and he was somehow exposed to some germ...probably something innocuous that you or I could fight off easily. His little body was so depleted from chemotherapy though that he could not fight it off.

Seven-year-olds should not die.

Because of cancer, I had to homeschool both of my children. I began homeschooling when they were in 5th and 7th grades. To say that it was difficult is laughable. I had no idea what I was doing. I figured it out though. Here are some lessons I learned along the way:

- I did not have to actively "educate" them from 8am to 3pm - the hours that they were normally in school. They did not receive seven hours of one-on-one attention from their teachers at school; therefore, why should I think they needed that much from me? We spent as much time as was needed on the lesson. If they finished a reading assignment in 30 minutes when I had an hour blocked off for it, that was ok.

- some subjects can be taught without a textbook, under a blanket while cuddling on the couch. Oftentimes with a cat in the cuddle somewhere. That's ok, too.

- flexibility is key. Because Keeghan was going through chemo, some days were better than others. If he wasn't feeling up to math, we didn't do math that day. Go with the flow of the child.

- making activities fun creates wonderful memories that you will never forget. Trying to keep things regimented creates horrible memories that also will not be forgotten. Trust me when I say that it is better to have the wonderful memories years from now than it is to have the horrible ones.

You might think what you are dealing with is the worst thing you've ever experienced. Cancer parents would beg to differ. My son died in 2008. We just passed what would have been his 24th birthday. My daughter is now 26 and on her own. I am watching from the sidelines as so many of you "suffer" through this quarantine with your children and I am jealous. I am so incredibly jealous of this gift of time home with your children that you have been given. You have the opportunity, right now, to create lifelong memories with these incredible little humans you created. Don't pass it up. Don't look at it as some kind of punishment. This virus spreading around the world is a horrible thing. There are positives to be found in it though if you only take the time to see them.

Take advantage. If for no other reason, take advantage of this time for me, so that I can experience it vicariously.

Please.

COVID-19 and politics should not mix

I’m so exhausted.

No, I do not have coronavirus.

I am exhausted from listening to the many different arguments surrounding this current COVID-19 pandemic.

I gave my husband a ride to work today. On the ride home, I listened to a local morning show on the radio. Callers were arguing for and against how our government is dealing with this outbreak. Should we have halted flights from Europe? Did we ban travel from China quickly enough? Was this virus created by the Democrats to interfere with the election this year? Was this virus created by the Republicans to interfere with the election this year? Everyone has an argument to support their stance on the subject and they all believe themselves to be absolutely correct. No news there. Isn’t that the beauty of being American? We can think for ourselves and come to our own conclusions and make decisions for ourselves based on those conclusions, whether they are based in true fact or not.

Where the whole thing went south for me was when the host of the radio show got irritated with a caller who was defending the president’s decision to halt travel from the EU for 30 days. He said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah...I see now. You’re one of those Trumper Fan Boys.” The caller was (understandably) offended by that comment and said so. The host then said, “I don’t care if you’re offended. It’s true. I can hear it in your voice. As far as you’re concerned, Trump can do no wrong. You’re part of his cult.”

The caller was not saying anything that could really be construed as wild or far-fetched; only that he thought it was good that travel from countries more heavily affected by the virus is being halted for a while in order to let the virus run its course. The radio host, however, went on the attack. I honestly wanted to call in, because in my opinion the radio show host was being over-the-top dramatic by taking what this caller said and turning it into childish name-calling rather than having an intelligent discussion.

It brought to mind a conversation I had with someone yesterday. I respect this person a great deal, but we are on opposite sides politically. She sees this president as a toxin. I see many of the prominent Democrats in Congress as a far worse and widespread toxin. But here’s the thing that I pointed out to her: she can voice her opinion without fear of being attacked, verbally and physically. I cannot.

My husband jokes about wanting to buy himself a MAGA hat. It isn’t that he thinks they look good or are a wise fashion choice. He just doesn’t like the fact that everyone on the left can scream and yell and cry and stomp their feet and protest and, generally, force their political opinions and feelings and beliefs down the throats of everyone and we’re all supposed to just take it, but he can’t wear something that shows who he supports without fear of physical attack.

What is wrong with that picture?

Of course, because I love my husband and would prefer he not be physically attacked or shoot anyone, I have asked that he not wear a MAGA hat or anything else that shows he supports President Trump. Instead, we just plan to vote.

Back to COVID-19 though. This virus is no joke, to be sure. Neither was H1N1, Ebola, SARS or any of the others we have faced in the past. Do I believe there should be widespread panic and a run on toilet paper? No, I don’t. Of course, why should you believe me? I’m not a doctor. I’m just a logical person. If you take proper precautions - wash your hands, cover your cough/sneeze, stay home if you are having cold or flu symptoms, don’t go into large crowds if you don’t have to - then you are probably safe. Personally, I would not be traveling right now, but that’s just me.

On a larger level, I think closing our borders is a great idea. If there is a possibility that we will have more cases needing hospital beds than we have hospital beds for, why would we be foolish enough to let more people into the country? I care about humanity, but I’ll be honest - the freedoms that we enjoy as Americans should not be AS free or AS readily available to non-Americans in times like these. I should not have to worry that, should I need a hospital bed, one is not available because it is already taken by someone here illegally. That is not saying that I think an illegal alien should not be treated if they are already in the country and become sick. Of course I think all people should be treated, but if we can stop more illegal people from entering the country and possibly taking up beds in hospitals that (I feel) American citizens should have priority for, then yes, I think we should close our borders.

It is absolutely ridiculous in a time like this that people are still playing partisan political games. If you are one of those doing it, just stop. Seriously. Unless you have completely lost your ability to be human, stop. That is not who we should be.

Now, back to your regular programming.

Find your peace, Mom.

My mom died today.

That is so surreal to type. I've lived 52 years knowing that someday I would say those words, but it is still so strange to finally say.

I've had a strained relationship with my mom for a very long time, but that is a whole other blog post. I've wanted to tell Mom's story for a long time now, mainly because I think she has been short-changed in a lot of ways in life. Now is finally the time.

I can only tell it as it has been told to me. I'm sure there might be some who read this who say it is not correct, but I am telling it from Mom's perspective which is likely different from those who knew her. So be it.

Mom was born in South Dakota in 1942. My grandfather was in the Army. I don't know if he was in the Army when she was born, or if he joined later on. I only know that he was in the Army after she was born because she always said she learned to talk in Louisiana (hence her pronunciation of "towel" as "tal" and "wash" as "warsh" according to her).

Eventually, she ended up in Illinois. I don't know how old she was when she moved there; only that she attended high school in Raymond, Illinois.

When Mom was 14, her mother gave birth to a boy. As Mom told the story, everyone in town knew the child was not my grandfather's. In fact, Mom would freely say that she was the child of the town drunk and town whore (her words, not mine). As soon as the child, Rusty, was born, my grandmother moved his crib into Mom's room and told her he was hers to raise.

That's a lot for a 14-year-old girl. At one point as a baby, Rusty got sick and ran a high fever. Mom spoke of sitting up with him all night long, trying to soothe the miserable baby. Rusty ended up with "brain damage" because of the illness that caused him to always have problems developmentally. He never read well. He could sign his name; that was about it.

Sometime during her high school years, she dated a guy named Cliff. Because she had to take Rusty everywhere with her, they had a toddler chaperone on most dates. Cliff was older and in the Navy. He was Mom's first love. Unfortunately, at some point, he ended up cheating on her and having a child with another woman.

I think that experience put the seed of an idea in Mom's mind though. After graduating high school, she decided to join the Navy herself. Keep in mind, it was 1960. Not very many women joined the military at that time. My great grandmother's last words to my mother before she left for boot camp were, "Only bad girls join the military."

I have always wondered if Mom joined the Navy to escape Cliff and his new wife, to escape having to mother her younger sibling, or just to escape all of it. At 18, she had already been a "grown-up" for quite a while.

Mom went to boot camp in Bainbridge, Maryland and later was stationed in Long Beach, California. She had great stories of her Navy time! She worked as a medic (I honestly don't know what her technical title was), and she talked about giving sailors vaccinations in the clinic. Once, a sailor in for shots asked her if it would hurt. She told him that it would not. After she gave him his shot, he immediately said it hurt and bit her on the back of her hand. He bit hard enough to break the skin. She said that she developed an infection from it. The sailor was not punished, but eventually, he had to come through for shots again. When he did, instead of giving him the vaccination he was in for, she gave him a shot of isopropyl alcohol. Apparently, that "stings like a bitch."

Mom was a bit of a badass.

Another story that I heard many times was of a guy who asked Mom out while she was in the Navy. He bragged to his buddies that he would "get in her pants." Fortunately for my mother, one of the buddies told her his plans. Mom played along, going to a hotel with him. She told him to get comfortable and went to the bathroom to "get ready" only to come back out with a bucket of cold water. She dumped it on him as he laid in wait on the bed and then left.

Again, badass.

By the time Mom got out of the Navy, her parents, older brother and his wife and younger brother had moved to California from Illinois. Also, Cliff had been discharged from the Navy and was divorced from his first wife. Mom and Cliff were married on January 1, 1964. She'd finally found her happily ever after, marrying her first love!

On January 31st, just 30 days after getting married, Mom was driving in Byron, California, where she and Cliff lived, and she came upon a car accident. Because she had medical training from her military time, she got out of her car and walked up to the accident to see if she could help in any way. That was how she found out that her husband had died. She only found out that she was pregnant later when she miscarried.

Honestly, I cannot imagine going through all of that at just 21-years-old.

I don't know if she was already working as a waitress at that time or if she began that job later, but three months after Cliff died, while working as a waitress in a local restaurant, she met a new guy. His name was Al and he was recently divorced. He was a few years older than her and had two boys from his first marriage. The owners of the restaurant she worked at were Al's ex-wife's parents.

I don't know if you can say they dated or not, but three weeks after they started seeing each other, they went to Reno and got married. My mother, a 21-year-old widow, became not only a wife again, but also a stepmother to a 7- and 4-year-old.

I did not become a mother until I was nearly 28-years-old and I still felt like I had no idea what I was doing. I cannot imagine instantly becoming a mother to two children at 21!

Add to all of that a new pregnancy. My brother, Brad, was born nine months and two days after my parents were married (and he was one day late!).

Dad had custody of his older boys, but they still spent time with their mother occasionally. Because of the reasons they divorced, it was a strained relationship. His first wife had cheated on him, becoming pregnant by another man. My dad, fool that he is (in my opinion), helped find a family to adopt that child and then took her back. It was only after the second time she cheated and became pregnant (by yet another man) that Dad divorced her.

Needless to say, when the older boys were with their mother, she did not have kind words about my mom. Mom told me stories of the boys coming back from being with their mother and telling her that she couldn't tell them what to do because she wasn't their mother. At one point, the younger boy went through a phase of biting his older brother. At a loss as to what to do, Mom finally held him down and let the older boy bite him back! Was that the best solution? Of course not. Did it work? According to Mom, yes, it did.

Dad told me once that he would sometimes come home at the end of a workday and find Mom sitting on the front porch, crying, while the boys were in the house destroying things.  Again, I cannot imagine what I would do in the same situation.

On top of all of this, Mom never felt that she was accepted into Dad's family. He was the youngest, with four older brothers and an older sister. My mom was not only the second wife, but she was also much younger than Dad's brothers and sisters-in-law. I don't know exactly what the reasons were for her not being accepted into the family and I never will as most of those family members are long gone. His father, my grandfather, was always welcoming of Mom, but he died only a few months after they were married.

The one person she did become close to was my grandmother, maybe because Grandma Kelley was also a second wife. Grandma once told my mom that her "greatest sin was marrying a Kelley." When Grandma was alive, we were always included in family gatherings. Grandma died when I was 12-years-old and I don't remember attending more than a couple family gatherings after that.

Eventually, Dad sent his two older boys back to live with their mother fulltime. Maybe there was some judgment against Mom about that, but those people didn't know the difficulties my mom was dealing with. The judgment was not disguised in any way though. I remember going to one uncle's house because he had a pool. He was always very loving and welcoming when we went to visit. I was so young that I never thought it odd that we never saw my aunt in those visits. We never went in the house and she never came out. Mom would sit by the edge of the pool watching us swim the whole time.

It's a strange thing to be the children of the second wife. You're never really a part of the family and that is so unfair - to us and to Mom.

But Mom survived all of that. We continued on as our own little family unit, separate from everyone else and she made sure we never felt like we were missing anything. She always had our backs and we always felt loved. She was never perfect, and for sure I have had my issues with her over the years, but considering all that she dealt with as a young woman, her strength is beyond question.

Her later years are another story. There are many, many stories that I will tell over the coming months, both good and bad. For now, though, I want to remember the badass that she was.

10 years...

I’ve been writing this in my head for a few months now and every time I tell myself it is time to sit down and get it all out, I find an excuse not to. I don’t even know what it is exactly that I want to say. I’ve just felt this need to write about him.

Today marks ten years since Keeghan left us. Damn it…just typing those words has me in tears. It’s still that unreal to me…so unreal that seeing the words in black and white stab like a knife. Ten years and that is still the same.

In so many ways, it feels like just yesterday that we were on that wild cancer journey. For two and a half years, he fought - we all fought - that damn beast and as crazy as it sounds, I miss it. I miss the way we were The Fantastic Four. The hospital visits always included so much laughter, because no matter where we were, we found reasons to laugh.

I miss the sound of his laughter so much.

It took a while to find laughter again. I won’t lie…I remember very little about the first three years after Keeghan died. I remember so many good friends being there for us in DC. I remember moving to California and being so damn lonely. 

We left DC nine months after his death. In the months between his death and that move to California, I spent a lot of time just hanging out in his room. It was where I went to write, to open his drawers and smell his clothes, like somehow that would bring a little bit of him back. I listened to the radio in there a lot and to this day, there are still songs that take me right back to that desk beside his bed, looking out the window on Chandler Drive. 

We bought a three-bedroom house when we got to California. There was no need to have a “Keeghan’s Room” so we left his bed and mattress in the garage. That lasted about two months I think. One day while Mike was at work and Mackenzie was at school, after a flood of tears and hand-wringing, I said fuck it and brought it all in. I hauled it up the stairs and put that damn third bedroom together just like his room in DC was, right down to the DC United, Baltimore Ravens and Washington Nationals foam fingers hung on the wall. I wasn’t ready to not have his room yet. I’m sure Mike and Mackenzie both thought I’d lost it when they got home that day, but bless them for not ever saying it out loud.

Those two years in California were not fun. We tried, we really did, but we just didn’t get what we had hoped for…what we needed…from living there. Grief is such a bitch. We were all grieving the same loss, but we didn’t know how to be there for each other and it almost destroyed our marriage. I had no idea what it felt like for a man to lose his only son. He had no idea what it was like for me to lose my baby. We neither one knew what it was like to lose your only sibling. We were three people who loved each other beyond measure but just couldn’t help each other. 

Luckily it all came to a head one day when Mike and I got into a fight that almost ended in him leaving. To this day, we cannot remember what that fight was about. I just remember screaming at the top of my lungs at him. In that moment, all of my pain and hatred and sadness and helplessness came out and got directed right at him. It took Mackenzie crying and begging him not to go when he had his keys in his hand to wake me up and make me realize I was about to lose him. From that moment forward, we’ve been solid. Stronger than we’ve ever been as a couple probably. But that day was the catalyst and afterward, I knew I had to get away from that place because I’d been in a fog ever since we got there and it needed to end.

So while moving to California was one of the worst choices we’ve ever made, moving to Japan in 2011 was the smartest. It took us half a world away from everyone and allowed the three of us to heal. The strength of our bond had to change because a major piece was missing. It didn’t mean Keeghan was no longer a part of us; it meant that instead of being part of the circle, he was now the piece in the middle that the three of us circle around. 

Let me make something very clear here though…healing does not mean getting over it or letting it go. That shit pisses me off when people say it. A secretary from one of the squadrons Mike belonged to before Keeghan died said that to me once. “I didn’t realize you were still grieving I thought you’d be over that by now.” Grief never leaves and Death becomes a member of the family. The pain of Keeghan not being here has never left. We just know how to control it better and part of that controlling is knowing who and when and where we are free to grieve. It also means knowing which people are good for your soul and which are not and cutting those who are not out. That sounds harsh, but it is necessary.

My mind scatters when I get on this subject. In the past ten years we’ve dealt with so many people who have said some really horrible things to us. I know they had no idea they were hurting us, but knowing that doesn’t change anything. We were asked not to talk about death in our own home because it made them uncomfortable. 

Hello, this is Death - he lives here!

I’ve been told that I make others uncomfortable. I’ve met new people and had them immediately quit talking to me and start avoiding me when they found out my son died. 

Did they think cancer is contagious?

I saw what was supposed to be a grief therapist in those first couple of years. One session, as I told her about how lonely it was to have new people give you the cold shoulder as soon as they find out your child died, she suggested I not tell people about Keeghan. She said maybe I should tell people I only have one child and then once they had time to get to know me and like me, I could tell them then about my son who died.

I never went to see her again.

I do have a son. Not I did have one. I fucking DO have a son. For as long as I live and breathe, he will be here and real and he will always be my son and I will not deny his existence. 

Don’t even get me started on survivor’s guilt. I’ve heard that phrase so many times and I’m here to tell you, it’s bullshit. It’s an indulgent way for people to make my loss be about them. I don’t feel guilty for living. I don’t even feel guilty for not being able to save him anymore. Moms are not all-powerful. I get that now.

So how are things different ten years later? I look different. Sometimes I let myself be stupid and wonder if he would even recognize me now. I have more tattoos and piercings. My hair is a different style and a different color…would he know me?

Stupid, i know but grief does that to you.

I know he would recognize me, just as I would know him. He was always mine. That sounds strange, but it’s the only way to describe it. When the four of us got out of the car anywhere, Mackenzie always grabbed Daddy’s hand and Keeghan held mine. It never had to be said; it was just a given. He was mine to hold, always. 

That was another of those things that took a while to work through after he left. Even as a teenager, Mackenzie would always do her normal thing and reach for Daddy’s hand when we got out of the car. I didn’t have a hand to hold anymore. I remember walking behind them in the parking lot of a mall in Maryland and completely breaking down because I didn’t have anyone to hold my hand!  

Only a person who has lost a child understands those everyday moments that just destroy you.

There have been times over the years where I have absolutely hated myself for the thoughts that I’d have. At my darkest moments, I hate other parents who haven’t lost a child. I hate the asshole children that I see and wonder why they couldn’t have been the one to die. I hate people who try to give me reasons for why he died…the people who throw their religion at me like their faith in some myth is the reason it happened to our family and not theirs.

I’d like to introduce them to the multitude of parents I’ve met on this cancer journey who shared their faith and still lost a child.

That is one thing that has not changed at all in the last decade. I was not religious before Keeghan was diagnosed with cancer. I didn’t find religion while he fought for his life. I have not found a belief in any religion since. My son didn’t die because we are not Christians (or any other religion). He died because he had a disease that has no cure. It happens. 

That is the one truth I have accepted, as much as I hate it. Shit. Fucking. Happens.

I don’t care what kind of life you live, if you pray, eat vegan, grow your own vegetables, live off the grid, or if you eat nothing but KFC, drink bad scotch and get high every day…you can still get cancer. Deal with it.

I sat down to write about how we are different ten years later and, as usual, went off on a tangent. I don’t get to sit down and write nearly enough these days, so this is what happens - I get a mad case of word diarrhea and can’t stop rambling.

So how am I different?

I have less of a filter. I am brutally honest. So much so that I piss a lot of people off and don’t really care. It isn’t that I want to hurt anyone. I just don’t have time to sugar coat or pussyfoot around things. I say what I feel and you can like it or not. Your choice.

I still love just as fiercely as I did then. I’m just less generous with that love. 

I give very few second chances on anything.

I’m still very lonely, even when there are others around. I always feel different than everyone else. Even when I see myself in pictures with other smiling people, I see myself as the one who doesn’t belong. 

Side story…right after Keeghan died, I went back to my monthly bunco group with ladies I had been playing with for months before he died. It was October…so not quite two months had gone by. Understandably, I think I was less “fun” than normal. I remember standing on the edge of everything. It was my first experience of that feeling of being different from everyone. About half way through the evening, one of the women came up to me and said, “If you don’t want to play with us anymore, Shannon, we’ll all understand.” 

I don’t know if she meant it the way I took it, but I took it as, “Hey Shannon, you’re bringing us all down so why don’t you just quit coming, k?”

Whether it was meant the way I took it or not I’ll never know, but that was exactly how I took it and I walked out and cried all the way home. I also quit going to bunco. That has been my MO ever since then. If I don’t feel comfortable in a situation or around someone, I just avoid that situation or person. Life is easier that way.

But none of it brings him back or makes me forget. Nothing makes me forget the sound of his laugh, the way he’d roll his eyes at Daddy’s silly jokes, the way he loved hanging out with his sister. Nothing makes me forget the way I’d lean over him on the hospital bed and make him focus on blowing my hair out of my face to distract him every time they had to stick that huge damn needle in his chest to give him chemo. Nothing makes me forget the ambulance ride in the middle of the night with him seizing the entire way, but still saying my name, “Mama…Mama.” 

Nothing makes me forget the slow way that cancer destroyed him. Nothing makes me forget what he looked like lying on the sofa, lifeless, while we waited for a funeral home to come take his body.

Nothing makes me forget how it soothed my soul to just hug him and know that right then, in that moment, he was still with me.

Ten years and it still hurts so much. I don’t think time can change that.

Then there are the good memories. The funny, sweet memories of Keeghan are what keep me sane sometimes. They usually come out of nowhere and bring a smile. Again, it took a few years to get to that point, where the good memories bring a smile and not debilitating tears. We al remember different things, which is beautiful because the things that Mike and Mackenzie remember remind me of time that I forgot. 

Just last night, Mike reminded me of what a little zen dude Keeghan was. Before cancer became a part of our world, we lived in North Carolina and had a big trampoline in the backyard. There were times when Keeghan would just disappear and we’d find him on his back in the middle of the trampoline, staring up at the big pine tree overhead, just chilling out. He was always able to find an inner peace that the rest of us weren’t. He’d do it in a barber’s chair while getting a haircut too. It was hilarious! His eyes would glaze over and he’d just zen out.

After his cancer diagnosis, his zen place became the pool in the backyard. It was one of those small pools with the inflatable ring on top that you can buy at your local big box store. Mike remembers how he’d come home from work and put a bathing suit on and he and Keeghan would go out back to the pool and discuss his day. Keeghan would lay on his boogie board and float, looking up at Mike and asking him about his day. Their little big of nightly man time.

One of my sweetest memories of Keeghan was as a baby. He was only a few months old. We lived in Illinois and Mike was still in college, working nights as a phlebotomist at a local hospital. One evening, after getting Mackenzie put to bed, I was sitting on our bed holding Keeghan. He’d just fallen asleep and I was enjoying just holding him for a little while before putting him in his crib. 

I leaned down and kissed his forehead and said, “I love you.” In his sleep, he smiled. It was so funny, so I tried it again. “I love you” - another smile. Mike was in the room getting ready to leave for work, so I told him to watch and said it again. Another smile. It was so funny! Finally Mike said, “Will you let that poor boy sleep!” I’ve never forgotten that though; even in his sleep he was the happiest baby.

Of course, he could have been faking sleep. That was a skill he mastered in the hospital. The doctors would come in to see him and he’d appear asleep, so they’d talk to us and then leave, saying they’d come back later when he was awake. Then, after they left, Keeghan would open his eyes and riddle us with questions about things they’d said. We learned very quickly to be careful about what was said in the room when Keeghan was “asleep.”

He was a funny little man. He once tried getting his grandmother to buy him a new bathing suit - or babing suit as he called them at the time - when I had already told her he didn’t need a new one because he had a bunch of them already. When she asked him if he was sure he needed a new one, because his mother had already said he had quite a few, he said, “I collect them.” If I remember correctly, she cackled with laughter and then bought him a new one.

So, so, SO many good memories. Ten years later it is still hard to believe…no, hard to accept that he is gone. How can the world still be turning without his huge personality and heart in it? I wish I could go back to his baby days when he couldn’t say “I love you” yet and instead said, “I sushoo.” 

He was sweet and funny and kind. His life’s goal was to cure cancer. He was meant for such great things. 

I miss him so much.

I sushoo, Bubby. 

Stop bullying.

At the end of my work day, when there are only a few minutes left until I can leave and I don’t want to stop in the middle of something, I read the news online. I don’t particularly like reading the news, because there’s rarely anything happy to be found there. A few days ago was a perfect example.

The first headline that jumped out at me was about a teenager who killed herself in front of her family. She was a senior in high school and had been bullied for her weight - cyberbullied. No one had nerve enough to harass her in person. Instead, these cowards who thought they were so much better than she sent text messages and created Facebook pages to bully her. She killed herself because of words said by faceless people. 

Seriously? 

The article told of how her family pleaded with her to not pull the trigger, and with them there to witness it, she shot herself in the chest.

I can’t get that mental image out of my head. It’s been haunting me for a couple of days now, mainly because it ties in with the reason I’ve been avoiding Facebook. I’m disgusted with the way so many people I consider friends are behaving lately. Mostly it has been political comments, but there are so many other comments that make me wonder if anyone really thinks about what they’re saying anymore, especially when it is being said behind the safety of a computer screen.

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with social media from the beginning. People speak their minds, exercising their freedom of speech, without a thought as to how others will react. What to you might seem a completely acceptable thing to say can hurt or anger someone else. Words are THE most painful weapons, because they cut silently, deeply and without witness.

Reading about a young life lost because of the pain caused by words got me to thinking…have I ever been a cyberbully? The more I thought about it, the more I realized that yes, I have. We’ve all been bullies. Think about it…have you ever written a scathing review of a business on Yelp? Left negative feedback on eBay or Amazon that was maybe a little more harsh than it had to be? How many Facebook posts have you written about the stupidity of people who voted differently than you in the recent election? 

Would you have the nerve to say the exact same things face to face?

How many times have you left vague replies to a friend’s post, clearly implying you disagree or are judging that person? Have you ever got into a heated argument with a total stranger in the replies to a friend’s post? Did it make you feel superior to that person to tell them your truth?

That is an important part of all this by the way. Your truth. Not the truth, even though that might be what you have convinced yourself. Everyone has their own truth. 

Example: I am not a Christian. I do not believe in the Bible, Jesus, God. None of it. So when you post things like, “Thanks be to God” over the fact that your child survived his/her cancer, do you stop to think how those of us whose children didn’t survive might feel? God chose to save your child, but chose to let mine die? Is that the message? If so, this god is a huge asshole. That is my truth. 

Another religious comment that seems innocent is, “Jesus is the reason for the season.” What you should be saying is, “Jesus is the reason for your season,” because he is not the reason for mine. The things that I celebrate this time of year have nothing to do with Christianity. They have to do with my truths.

Those are fairly innocuous examples. They anger me, but they don’t harm me. I’m not insulted by them; merely disgusted with their presumptuousness. Recently though, the comments on politics have reached the point of (what I consider to be) cyberbullying. When you lambaste an entire group of people because they voted differently than you, calling them names or saying they’re all ignorant, uneducated…stupid, does it occur to you that not everyone who will see it agrees with you? Does it occur to you that you are criticizing people you supposedly consider “friends”? Do you care?

We speak without thought or tact, because we don’t have to see the reaction of others to our words. That is bullying. If you only feel better about yourself when you’re bringing someone down, you are a bully. I grew up with someone like that and it took nearly 50 years before I was able to say, “No more!” and cut that person from my life. Lives are being lost because words are being said without care. 

I had no choice but to watch my son die. He wanted to live - more than anything, he wanted to live! Yet I still had to helplessly watch him die. The parents of this young girl also had to helplessly watch their child die, but it didn’t have to be that way! We need to stop spewing hate and judgement. We need to be spreading acceptance, tolerance and love. We especially need to be teaching our children to do the same.

A bullet to the chest, as she cried about not being able to deal with it all anymore. How is this the world we live in now? How? Because we are creating that world with ever word we wield. How dare we use those weapons so carelessly?

I love seeing posts about your child’s baseball team winning, new jobs, kids in Halloween costumes, couples in ugly sweaters…I want to be there to cheer you on as you fight tough life battles. I cry with you when you suffer a loss. I don’t want to be there when you post something vague, seeking attention without explanation. I don’t want to “like” a post where you are criticizing an entire group of people all because you don’t agree with them. I don’t want to help you feel better about yourself by bringing someone else down.

Social media should be fun. 

Afraid to hope.

For someone who operates on 90% emotion and 10% control, I try very hard to appear calm, cool and collected. Or, at the very least, I try to control which emotion is visible. The emotion that is easiest to let loose is anger, because being an angry person who scares the hell out of people is preferable to being that chick who cries over everything. The sad truth is, I do cry over a lot of things. I just try to do it where only a select few...ok, a select two...see me do it.

In the past few months, life has held many twists and stabs. I've fought very hard to keep it all under control so no one sees that, emotionally, I am like a ball of rubber bands, tightly wound. Occasionally, a band snaps, but the majority of the ball is still holding together, albeit tightly. My fear is that soon, numerous bands will snap at once.

Have you ever seen the inside of a golf ball? This is what I fear is eventually going to happen to all of the emotions I fight so hard to keep in.

I want peace for us. I want a place to call home, not an apartment with loud neighbors and apathetic management. I want a place for my dog to roam off leash. I want to be able to paint a wall black if the mood hits me. To that end, we put an offer on a house a few days ago and found out today that the seller has accepted our offer. In two months, we will have a home. Will it be the home I'm seeking? It is half the size of the last house I lived in, and I am not good at paring down. In fact, nothing makes me want to cut a bitch quicker than being told, "Just get rid of stuff." I am not a hoarder, but I have 24 years worth of memories in the shape of toys, pictures, books, gifts from my children...all of which are not just "stuff" to be discarded. Every rock, seashell, fairy, drawing and letter is precious to me. The trick is going to be ignoring those who feel they have the right to tell me what to do and finding a place for my treasures.

So, will this house be the home I am looking for? I don't know. All I know is that I want it to be, for a while at least. This will be our 4th move in less than 3 years. Just the thought of movers, unpacking, and cleaning another apartment makes me tired to my bones. But the thought of coming home to a house that is mine, with a yard that I can garden in...ok, let's be honest...a yard that I can drink wine in and look at, is what is driving me.

But underlying that is still the nagging thought that California is not where we are meant to be. Mike is embarking on some interesting changes professionally. I may finally be achieving some professional satisfaction soon too. Maybe the coming months will reveal a love for this place that, thus far, I have been unable to find. Someone told us recently that we don't live in San Diego; we just work here. That could be true. We've been here almost two years and have spent that time living in apartments, going to jobs, shopping in the community, but never actually becoming part of  the place. Maybe living in a neighborhood and not just a building is the part that has been missing.

I want so much for all three of us, yet I feel like we're all chasing after that carrot that is eternally just out of reach. I am just hoping that reaching this point of emotional stretch, with the bands feeling as though they are about to snap, is as far as it will go and that the pendulum will finally start to swing the other way and some relaxation - both physical and mental - is finally coming our way.

The Irrational Reality of the Post Cancer Mind

On September 18th I had a mammogram. As a woman over the age of 40, I go in every year for the required boob-smashing. I have no history of breast cancer on either side of my family. ZERO history. But, as the parent of a child lost to cancer, the fear is there.

It's not just fear of breast cancer. It's fear of cancer. Period.

So, I had the mammogram. A few years ago I asked the woman doing my exam how long it would take for me to be notified if there was something there. She had just finished my scans and told me I could go get dressed. I'll never forget her - she was a black woman, probably about my age, with a friendly smile. She looked at me and said, "Honey, if I saw something there, I wouldn't be letting you walk out the door right now."

As in all previous years, that scan came back clear. Since then, I've always trusted that, if I'm allowed to get dressed and leave, the girls are good to go.

Last Tuesday - a full eleven days after my mammogram - I got a call from the mammo tech saying I needed to come in for more scans. Unfortunately, I missed the call because I was at work, so I got the message on voicemail after the clinic had closed. Immediately I was shaking. Instant tears. It was just a voicemail, and already I knew I was dying. I had to go to a baseball game that night and put on a happy face, because I didn't want to say anything to Mackenzie yet. How do I tell my child - the only child I have left, because cancer already stole her brother, her best friend, from her seven years ago - that I will never get to see her children...that I won't get to help her shop for a wedding dress...that I'm so sorry I won't live to be old like I thought I would.

The next morning, I called the radiology clinic as soon as it opened. I spoke with the tech who took my scans. She explained that there was "something" on one side that didn't appear in last year's scans (which she also took). I tried keeping my voice level, even as my insides felt like they had turned to jello. I asked when I could come back for more scans. She responded with, "I can get you in on October 13th."

It was September 30th. She wanted me to wait 13 DAYS? In my head, my already raging breast cancer was guaranteed to metastasize in those 13 days, becoming tumors in my lungs, my brain, and anywhere else sticky in my insides that it could latch onto.

I said, "Okay," resigned to my fate, hung up and called my husband. That is when the tears started. True to form, he blew a gasket. "What do you mean they can't get you in until the %&@#ing 13th? Did she say what it is that they saw? Can you call her back?"

After a mostly-failed attempt to pull myself together, I called her back. I asked if there was anything sooner than the 13th. I told her all of the questions that Mike had asked. And then I said the words that (I think) pushed the right button with her.

"I'm sorry. It's just that...we lost our 12-year-old son to cancer seven years ago. Cancer is something that we all have a very real fear of."

I was crying by the time I finished that simple sentence. She put me on hold, came back a few minutes later and offered to fit me in on October 6th. Technically the first appointment of the day was at 9:00 am, but she said if I came in at 8:00, she'd take my scans and then try to get a radiologist to read them as soon as she could. She warned that I might have to wait a while though. I was okay with that.

For six days, I imagined the worst. I didn't want to die. I was too young...I wanted to be there for Mackenzie as she falls in love, gets married, has children of her own. My husband was too young to lose me, which...let's be honest here...means that he's young enough to go out and  find another woman to love and spend his twilight years with, and that does not work for me. That bitch can find her own man, thankyouverymuch. Every older woman I saw, I thought to myself, "Why does she get to live to be old and I don't?" The morbid thoughts were endless.

If you think that I am the only one with this gruesome, pessimistic nature, think again. When I finally did tell Mackenzie that I had to go for more scans, she threw her arms around me and said, "If your hair falls out, I will shave my head too!" She didn't cry or freak out, but she automatically went straight to cancer, just as I had.

This morning, my husband and I got up and headed out to the hospital for the scans that I just knew would begin another journey of surgery and chemo for our family to deal with. Enough days had passed that I was thinking (slightly) more logically, hoping that my cancer was being caught early and at worst, I'd lose a boob (at best, I was hoping for a whole new rack).

I think I had a total of 8 new scans done, although it felt like 30. The tech commented that she was sorry she had to be rough, but that she "wanted to get as much tissue in the scan as possible." The fact that I don't have one side dragging the ground right now is a testament to the elasticity of skin. At one point as she was pulling and smashing my poor girl, taking the exact same scan for the third time, she said, "I want to make sure I get 'it' in the scan."

There it is...breast cancer. This mysterious "it" has to be a lump of some kind, right? They'd probably do an ultrasound after this, just to be sure, but then they'd come in and tell me. We'd start discussing biopsy, or maybe they'd just go right to a full radical mastectomy. Then on to oncology, maybe radiation. I wondered if I'd have to get the little dot tattoos on my chest so that the radiation would get targeted to exactly the right place.

Finally, after all the scans were complete, the radiologist came in. I asked if my husband could please come in also. Mike came and stood next to me, ready to catch me when the hammer fell. I braced myself for the worst.

"It's a lymph node."

I'm pretty sure Mike and I both just stared at him. All of the morbid thoughts became a mist that, temporarily, fogged my brain. I can't remember (even though it was just this morning) everything else that was said. I do remember him saying that I don't have to have another mammogram until my annual exam next year and I must have still been looking doubtful (or just stupid, which is highly possible). He then said, "I would say the same thing if I saw this in my wife, my sister, or my mother. It's just a lymph node."

As Mike and I walked out of the clinic, each of us had our phones out and were texting the folks that we'd had waiting in the wings to be there for us, just as they had been when Keeghan was diagnosed 9 years ago. Because that is how it is when you already bear the scars of cancer. At the slightest hint that cancer might be rearing its hideous head in your life again, you start to circle the wagons. You prepare for the worst, because the worst has already happened once. Is it irrational? Of course. But until you have proof that there is no cancer...there is.