And Still I Stand

My family means the world to me. I have some really happy memories of my young life but also some really bad ones. I had started working at age 15. It was automatic for me to help my mom pay the bills in the house since I saw first hand what she struggled with raising four of us. She worked when she could and was on welfare when she couldn’t. My siblings and I grew apart as we got older. When I turned 18 I decided to move out with some co-workers because I couldn’t take the arguing between my mother, my two brothers and one sister anymore. That was during my last year of high school. That was one of the worst years in my life. Since my birthday was in February, and my friends were planning the move in April, I had plenty of time to save what I needed while working at a Burger King in Newark, NJ.

My mother had been sick off and on for years. She was a typical strong black woman back then who kept everything to herself and dealt with everything by herself. We had no idea how bad it was. Well, before I moved out she started getting sick again. If anyone came to the door or called we were instructed to tell them that she was unavailable. When I moved out in April she began doing the same thing to me. But I’m her daughter and I knew something was up. I had been working for a while now and struggling to finish school. I thought I was grown now. I was going to school during the day, or at least trying to and working at night. Most times I wasn’t getting off work until about 2 in the morning and then I had to be in school around 8:15 am. Needless to say I missed a lot of days. One afternoon I decided to stop by to visit my mom unannounced. When I she opened the door I almost fell over. Now my mother was not big but she was a healthy size woman. The thin person that stood before me had to be about 60 to 80 pounds lighter and she had this growth on her face. She tried to cover it with her usual homemade bandage but it was falling apart and soaked. I knew at this point that her health was much more serious than she had lead us to believe.

I gathered for her what I could and my 18-year-old self took my 49-year-old mother to the hospital. The doctor came and talked to me after the professionals attended to her. I was told that she had cancer. It was called melanoma to be exact. I had her admitted with hopes that this would turn out to be a positive thing because we’re supposed to be able to take care of our parents when we get older aren’t we? Well being the strong, proud and stubborn woman that she was, she signed herself out of the hospital days later. I went to visit her after school and thought the worst when I saw her bed was freshly made up and all her belongings were gone. When I spoke with the doctor he told me that she had signed herself out and left all of her medicine. He then proceeded to tell me that he was sorry but it was only a matter of time before her demise and if she had done something sooner they could have prevented her loss of life. What!? He went on to tell me that if I could get her to return that it was possible that they could prolong her life through medicine. Unfortunately, my mother refused to go back or take any more meds.

Soon after that, while trying to manage my grades, keep my job, apartment and tend to my mother, she got worse real quick. One of her sisters stopped by to check on her because they hadn’t seen or heard from her in a long while. My aunt said she found my mother lying on the floor and unresponsive. . .

You can read the rest of my life story at http://lornasweets.wordpress.com

I'm still working on my first non-fiction novel. Please be patient for updates on the completion of this story. I can also be found at my other sites setting fire to my keyboard at;

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God Bless You All !

Laura T.