When my Mom was diagnosed with a glioblastoma multiforme I became consumed with questions, fears and so many emotions…too many and too big to contain.
And so I wrote.
I found a notebook and I wrote until I could find space to breathe once again. I wrote to process. I wrote to rage. I wrote to give voice to my many fears, my sadness, my outrage. She was my only living parent, my foundation, my north star, my home.
I wrote to cope.
I continued to write through my college graduation, my move to begin Graduate School and then my immediate move back home to care for her. I wrote through her treatments, her clinical trials, her hair loss, her diminishing physical and cognitive presence. I wrote as her humor gave way to silence. I wrote as her body failed her and she drifted slowly away from me. I wrote as I attended graduate school, fell in love, earned my graduate degree and began my adult life as a wife, a professional and soon a mother.
I wrote through times of great sorrow and times of great joy. I wrote for my salvation and for my healing.
Writing provides me with respite still. Writing helps me to remember, to honor and to record the truths of my life. Writing gifts me the opportunity to be raw, uninhibited, scared, angry, overwhelmed and vulnerable without judgement or the need to censor. My journals bear witness to my healing, my growth and my gratitude. As I read through the 20 plus years that have passed since my Mom’s diagnosis and death I see the transformation from a grief stricken, overwhelmed and uncertain girl to the woman that I am today. Someone who has learned experientially, and through the depths of despair, how to rise and how to heal.
And so I write…
