So, What the Heck Am I Supposed to Do Now?

I thought I had it all worked out.

I thought I had it under control.

I thought I knew just what I was supposed to do, how God was telling me to handle the situation.

I thought the wound had healed, that for once in so many years, I had actually put all the pain, and the hurt behind me.

Then one phone call, one turn of the phrase turned my world upside down.

It had been a good day. Really, it had. Richard and I had had the chance to spend some quality time with Kevin, our oldest son, at lunch. We'd finally been able to put the stress of his impending trip to San Antonio behind us, and really enjoy each other's company. I received an email from MSU wanting more information for my financial aid paperwork. (Yes, I know that to some, the idea of having to deal with more red tape and bureaucracy is more of a pain than a pleasure, but for me, it was a tangible evidence that this "Back to School" thing is actually going to happen..that I'm finally moving forward, and writing a new chapter in this extremely strange novel that is my life.) I went out to dinner with the beautiful, wonderful, and amazing ladies in my Lifegroup from Onelife, and for the first time in a very long time.. I didn't feel so alone. I even finally got enough nerve to actually call my Dad and tell him about my going back to school, and although he wasn't really too thrilled with my choice of a major - being the pragmatist he is, the idea of what I could do with a degree in psychology/social work, or even -why- I might want to deal with things that are so messy as feelings, wasn't something he understood fully - he told me he was proud of me, and that he loved me. I don't care how old you get, hearing your Dad say those things to you warms your heart, especially when they're not given lightly, and you know it.

Then, he asked a simple question. It wasn't earth-shaking, nothing traumatic. "Have you heard from your Mom or sister in the past couple of days?" Not an unusual question really, no more unusual than "How's the weather down there?" in conversation with my Dad. The truth be told, I think he asks it sometimes because he knows those relationships are broken, and being a man somewhat uncomfortable in his own emotions, he doesn't know how to ask how I'm dealing with things, how things or going or if I'm dealing with it okay, so he asks if I've talked to them. I replied with my usual response, "No, not this week. How are things there?". Usually when I ask, Dad will share some sort of story about how he talked to my stepdad at work, or some tale about how my niece or nephew are doing.

This time , however, his reaction was very different. His voice grew very quiet, and took a very serious tone. "Your Mom's back in the hospital. She had a lump under her arm, and they took her in to get it checked out. They admitted her, and the last I heard, they think it may be a blood clot."

Ironically, at that point, that news didn't really phase me. Mom's not been in good health for some time, so it wasn't really surprising. There was no melodramatic crescendo.. it was just another day, another story, more of the same old same old that I've gotten used to in the reality of my mom's life over the past few years.

Then, as I continued my conversation with my Dad on my cell phone, my house phone began to ring. I noticed a strange expression on Richard's face as he looked at the caller-id, and a certain hesitance in his voice when he answered, and greeted the caller with his "hello". Only a few seconds passed, before he looked at me and said, "Dee, it's your Mom. She's calling from the hospital. I think you'd better take this."

Something in his tone, in his expression left no doubt in my mind or heart that I should, although in all truthfulness, I really didn't want to do so. My Mom has a tendency to be a bit of a drama queen, and after a good day, I really wasn't in the mood for a self-imposed pity party, or another one of her "iron fist in a velvet glove" sessions of her telling me how wrong I am, how ugly I am, how I should never have been born. I had intentionally closed that chapter of my life.. I had dealt with it all, and just wanted to move on.

I really don't know why I said okay. On some levels, I wish I hadn't..but I did.

Hurriedly saying goodbye to my dad, I switched one phone , one conversation for another, expecting to be placing myself in the line of fire to become an "emotional punching bag" for my Mom, as I usually am, when she's in stressful or bad situations.

The voice I heard on the other end of that line was one I hadn't heard before. Maybe it was because she was heavily drugged, I don't know.. but as Mom told me about her admission to the hospital, and her two days in ICU, there was something frail, something vulnerable, so apparent in her words, and tone, that it took me by surprise. We talked a few moments about the doctors and their thoughts on her condition... and then she confirmed what I had been afraid of since Dad had told me she'd been in the hospital - that they think perhaps the cancer that's been eating her up for years now had spread to the bone.

At that very moment, that very instant, I felt like someone had hit me in the stomach, hard.. hard enough to knock the breath out of me.

You see, I know what that means. Given Mom's condition, if the cancer has spread, the chances of her recovering from it, of there being a treatment for it, are slim to none. The diagnosis will more than likely be terminal.

I'm trying to think positively here, to remind myself that they don't know for certain, that they haven't finished testing yet, that things could be totally different..but the truth is, I think I've felt for sometime now, that this was how things would go, that the cancer would eventually overwhelm her body. It's been too constant a companion for her for too long for it simply to just.. go away.

And with that reality.. my own reality was turned upside down.

As much as I might have thought that I had the situation under control, as much as I'd thought I had gotten some type of "closure" in my relationship with my Mom, the reality that she might soon be facing death, ripped away all the illusion, leaving me once more with this huge gaping wound in my heart..and not a band-aid in sight.

I thought that God had been showing me that it was time for me to move on, to not be held back by the hurts of the past...that my life didn't have to be defined by those things, that I could choose to go on, to let it all go. I had even grown sure that I wouldn't even go back for my Mom's funeral, that I had said my goodbyes, and that's all there was.

And now.. now, I have no clue where God's going with all this. Just when I get good and settled in what I think is His will, He seems to be taking me in just the opposite direction.

I don't know.. maybe He's telling me that letting go isn't enough, that forgiveness isn't enough. Maybe now He thinks I'm ready to take the next step, to see if there's more that can come now.

I can't lie, there's a part of me that still dreams that there could be healing there. Every little girl wants their mother to love them, and I'm no exception.

Then again, this could all just be some trick of the enemy, some sort of game with my head and heart, to throw me off the track of the growth I've accomplished.

The problem is, I've had these hopes so often, only to see them dashed, I'm scared to open up to even that possibility now. I shouldn't be afraid of hurt, I know that, especially when God's in the equation... but I am. So many times, I've reached out to my Mom, praying that things would be different, only to have my heart broken again. So many times, I've thought that maybe the illness would change her heart, and she could love me for who I was - and there were times that it seemed to, and I'd begin to hope, only to have that hope totally trashed when she felt a little better. I don't want to go there. I just don't want to go there. I've only just now begun to get to the point that I've started to accept myself for who I am, I don't want to go back to being the person that I was, the girl who was so locked up in all that pain for all those years.

To top it all off, Mom hasn't even had the bone scan yet. I may be putting myself through all of this for nothing. And with that in mind.. -why- am I doing just that..? Putting myself through this! Obviously there's something, some glitch in this armor of mine that's allowing it.. what do I do with that?

I thought I had it all worked out.

I thought I had it under control.

I thought I knew just what I was supposed to do, how God was telling me to handle the situation.

I thought the wound had healed, that for once in so many years, I had actually put all the pain, and the hurt behind me.

Then one phone call, one turn of the phrase turned my world upside down.

So, what the Heck am I supposed to do now?