Remember September

I love parenting blogs.  Not your traditional ones that talk about discipline or the proper diet to give your child.  The brutally honest ones.  Some of my favorites are Moms Who Drink and Swear, Scary Mommy and Mary Tyler Mom.  Who knew that one of these blogs would shake me back to a memory from long ago and remind me of a very valuable lesson.  

Let me start by saying I have a busy career and a work ethic I some days wish I didn't have.  But I also know those are two parts of me I cannot change and some days, I do like them. Most days, I go a 100 miles an hour, stopping only when one of my kids does something insanely funny.  Do I miss things?  I'm sure I do.  Do I want to miss them?  Not at all.  I'd like to think, when my kids look back on it, they will remember that I got down on the floor and played with them.  I sang silly songs.  I cuddled until we all fell asleep.  And I danced when I thought no one was watching. 

Mary Tyler Mom taught me through her posts about her daughter Donna's courageous fight with cancer, that September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month which lovingly uses the color gold.  How funny yet somewhat odd, that the month of such a horrible, life-taking illness is marked with the same color we give top athletes.  Perhaps that is just a tell-tale sign of how brave these young children are through such a tough battle and we should take the month to remember and celebrate them.  

Mary Tyler Mom has forced me to take a trip down memory lane to the first person I lost to cancer, my grandfather.  I was in high school and really, for as many years as he smoked I sometimes felt we should have been prepared for the worst, while always hoping for the best.  I was very close to my father's parents and loved to rub my grandpa's fuzzy, cleanly buzz-cut head.  To this day, I still love those haircuts and fight the urge to rub my hand on top of them. 

We didn't talk about worldly matters or even what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.  He had a quiet way about him where you knew he loved you without ever really saying it.  He read western books, watched them on TV and never missed an episode of "Wheel of Fortune."  And those blessed quarters!  Every time we left from a visit, grandpa gave us a quarter.  It's hard to say over my lifetime how much money I accumulated in quarters but as a kid, it seemed pretty cool!  The last time I visited his grave site, I left a single quarter I found in my wallet days earlier dated the year I was born.  That's the last time I visited him.  I prefer to believe we somewhat speak to each other every day.   

My father left home during grandpa's illness and spent days on end taking care of him calling home every so few nights to update my mother.  At the time, I could never understand how my father could be there every day just simply...watching...him die.  Being many years older, I clearly understand it all now.  Sometimes I feel embarrassed for the way I ran away from it.   

The last time I saw my grandfather, he was very ill.  I was just 17 and completely unexposed to cancer.  Never in my lifetime had I seen him lay in bed all day.  My grandmother took on this new look of worry I'd never seen on her face.  As usual, she tried to feed it away.  If he just ate this soup or had this one meal, he'd be better.  He got up just once when I was there to try to eat our favorite noodle soup.  It ended up being a gut wrenching hour of watching him attempt to eat, gag, cough, then nearly pass out.  I tried not to cry in front of him or my grandmother but it was clear he was dying.  

As we left that day, I knelt by his bed with him tucked inside, thin as a rail, just skin on that over 6 foot body.  I mustered every bit of courage I had to go in that room.  This was not my grandfather.  

"I love you, grandpa," I said to him, knowing this was the last time I would see him, kissing him on his forehead.  

"I love you too," he said back through closed eyes.  

I got up to leave and he grabbed my hand.  It startled me and I turned back to look at him.  He was sitting up on an elbow, stern brow staring right at me.  

"Don't you ever doubt how much I love you," he said and just as quickly laid back down and went to sleep.  

That's the last conversation we ever had.  I never do nor have I ever doubted how much he loved me.  While he had his own way, he showed me that each and every moment he spent with me.  The same thing I must do now with my own children.

Upon reading Donna's story through Mary Tyler Mom, I hug my own girls just a little more tightly and thank God they are healthy.  I think back to my grandfather and how he said what he hadn't said in all my 17 years in just one sentence.  I also know that in my busy time I need to stop just a little bit more to listen, laugh, and love.  And maybe, just maybe, dance when everyone is watching.