I've always had this fear that my mother was going to die and I wasn't going to be there with her. When I was little I had terrible nightmares in which our house would be on fire and somehow I would get out but she wouldn't. I would wake up in a cold sweat my tears soaking my pillow. Then I would crawl into her bed with her and she would rub my back and tell me everything would be ok. That she was there and she wasn't going anywhere.
When I was in third grade I had to carry a picture of her around with me in a envelope. There was a note with it, written on pink paper that said 'I love you'. Through out the day I must have looked at that at least 100 times. I called her every day at lunch. I remember a couple of times she didn't answer and I would fall onto the nurse's room floor and cry my eyes out, a million terrible thoughts running through my mind. I was thinking that she had died while I was at school. I wasn't there with her. I'll never see her again. Then the nurse would try the number again and she would answer and slowly talk me down from my hysteria and I could finish the rest of the school day. I didn't spend the night at a friends house until I was 13. Not even my best friend's which was literally across the court yard maybe half the size of a football field away. I could look out her window and see into my sisters room, but I couldn't see my mom so I couldn't do it. I was ok until the lights got turned off and we were expected to go to sleep. I would be fine and then I would start to think about all the things that could happen while I was out of the house. Someone could break in, kill my mother in her sleep. There could be a fire, did I leave my crimpper plugged in? I couldn't stand the thought that something bad might happen to my mom and I wouldn't be there to die with her. That was the big thing. It was ok if she died as long as I died with her. Then it wouldn't be me left behind without her.

I eventually grew up. I started to stay over friends houses, still calling my mom to say goodnight and once in the morning to make sure she lived through the night without me. Then I became a teenager and the 'leave me alone' gene took hold of me. I would tell my mother I hated her for making me stay home, not letting me go to a party that I shouldn't have been at anyway. I wanted her die some days and I would tell her this and she would keep a straight face and tell me calmly that she knew I didn't really mean it and that she loved me. Pretty soon all that evened out and I could appreciate my mother. All the wonderful stuff she did for me growing up. All the times she pulled together a wonderful Christmas even though we didn't really have the money. The things she taught me. How to play rummy, how to speak my mind and never back down from it if it was what I truly believed. How to be the woman I am now, one that I am proud to be. Even if I feel like shit some days, or make a few bad decisions now and then.

I love my mom and I don't want her to die. I didn't want her to when I was just a kid crying on the nurse's room floor in the third grade and I don't want her to now that I'm a 20 year old woman trying to hold it all together and appear to be strong. So when she sat me down tonight and started to talk about the possibility that it could be someday in the not too distant future that I have to deal with the fact that she is going to die, and I won't be dying with her, I wasn't ready for it. She has a meeting with her oncologist tomorrow. This meeting will give us all a time line for what is to happen next. I don't believe in god. I never have and probably never will. That's just not in the equation for me, but I ask who or whatever is out there to make my mom ok. Make it so I don't have to carry around a picture and I note again. Because this time I won't be able to just call her and have her tell me that everything is ok.