pancreatic cancer – Anélemc's Writing

L. Alcohol is your best friend
It’s there when you need it
Has a wonderful numbing effect
Comes in a variety of grains, grapes and content
No instruction label is needed

O. Grief-the gift that keeps on giving
You never get over it
It pops up unexpectantly
Gives you lifelong membership in the Dead Moms Club
Holidays and Birthdays take on a somber meaning

V. You imitate the qualities you miss and admired
“Giving is living” is now your motto
You wear silver and gold jewelry at the same time
Keep the sink clear of dishes before going to bed
Pine Sol, Vicks and Dawn (and the occasional Spam)

E. Do what your mom wanted for you
(in other words: Listen to her advice)

Relocate to a different city
(because she wanted you to)

Get out socialize and make friends
(because she encouraged you to)

Take care of yourself
(because she knew you didn’t)

Run the 2018 Nov NYC Marathon
(because she said you could)

Margarita, my mom, died one month before the 2018 NYC Marathon. As we watched the runners from the previous year on 4^th avenue in Brooklyn, she turned to me and said, “You could do this”. I thought she was crazy but decided to train for it. She entered the hospital the end of August with a twisted intestine and was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September, at the height of my training. The botched-up surgery left her with a colostomy bag and fissures that leaked waste. We never got to the ‘treat the cancer’ part. Throughout her hospital stay she’d ask if I put in the training when I came to spend the night.

It was not consistent but when she came home to die it picked up. My last long run, 19 miles around Prospect Park was interrupted by the funeral home alerting me to pick up my mother’s ashes. My mom, Margarita, was with me on race day, her ashes in a bracelet around my wrist and her name on the racing bib I wore on my chest.

LOVE is my mom.

Mom, my mom, would often quote a verse to me during my moments of frustration intolerance with life not going according to my plan.

“Accept the things you cannot change…” 412

Oh lordy how those words bugged the crap out of me.

This is MY life, MY destiny, MY footprint on existing, MY, MY, and definitely MY!

I refused to accept, concede to, acknowledge or resign to her advice. Everything, absolutely everything can be changed with perseverance, determination and straight up ghetto refusal.

Naw man. Everything.

I have the power and ability to change, the perseverance to guide and shape while steering the helm of the wheel, the sole master of my world.

This is MY life, MY destiny, MY footprint on existing, MY, MY, and definitely MY!

Well…

HIM, yes, the one Noah built an ark for, the same one Moses climbed the mountain for and also the one whom Mary became pregnant for, put me in my place, disrupted my inner peace, laid down the law and let me know destiny belongs to no one but HIM. The Habby and the Mommy

Pancreatic cancer latched on to my mom and won’t let go.

Like a soft whisper, a gentle wind caressing a cheek,

A touch of cotton soaked in cold witch hazel against the face on a hot summer day,

Ice cream in a cone, silky like velvet, on the tongue

Satisfying that sweet tooth…

Pancreatic cancer latched on to my mom and won’t let go.

I’ve cried the same thousand tears that bent my lashes inward when I cried for Pi Patel.

Pi Patel passed into shadow…suddenly. No whisper no warning. No ice cream or witch hazel on a hot summer day. imagejpeg_2 (3)

My mom is dying…

slowly in front of my being that longs to have her like I did back in the day when I was a baby and she was my mother taking care of me and working so hard to support a family that society deemed should be supported by a man but family’s man had long gone back to his country to find solace, peace and acceptance that didn’t exist in the new world he hoped to call home.

Enough.

Love my dad but this isn’t about him.

It’s about my mom

She thought at first it was a return of the stage 4 colon cancer of the past, because sometimes they come back. The boys and mom 019