• I can still remember the day that my sisters and I were told about the cancer. It was a hot summer day; not a cloud in the sky. We had decided on a lazy, indoors day because none of us felt like being miserably hot. (Go figure.) She asked us if we would like root beer floats. We had, surprisingly, never had them before, but we liked root beer and we liked ice cream so why not imbibe something cold on this swelteringly warm day? We answered affirmatively, and, thirty minutes later, as we were finishing them up, she said that she needed to talk to us about something serious. The last time she said something like that her and James, my stepfather, moved to North Carolina! Say that I was curious would have been an understatement. So we listened, intently, to what she had to say. She started by telling us that she didn’t want us to worry, that we shouldn’t because it was just a minor case of cancer which was probably not going to escalate, that was all going to be okay . . . Indeed. It would be okay but not without world of pain and anguish beforehand.
    Things that you love, much of the time, require strength and discipline. I loved band. Though it took much effort, I do not regret being in band. Love takes sacrifice, you know? I don’t think I knew how much till September ninth of two thousand six.
    “Blasted band competition . . .,” was y first thought on that hot September day. I had snoozed a little too long – I had about twenty minutes to get ready, gather my things and some breakfast, and to get my behind to the school to leave for the band competition. During the next few moments I clambered out of bed, put on my uniform, and began to walk down the dim, narrow hallway toward the dining area to finish preparations for the function that I was, ultimately, not to attend. Upon reaching the threshold of that dining area, my eyes met James at the kitchen table.
    Now, I’ve known James for eleven years, and in those eleven long years I have seen, for the most part, very little range in emotion. James is an angry man with a wicked, short temper, but my mother loved him since the day she met him. Anyway, him being such a man, I had seen him cry very few times. I could count the times on one hand . . . he does not shed tears without reason.
    I watched him struggle to keep his composure in a daze. “What could be wrong?” I thought, “Why does this ex-marine cry?” I was a bit vexed, a bit worried, but I had to know, so I asked him about it. “What’s going on James?” . . . The tears were a reservoir building behind a failing dam . . . He answered me using a soft, weeping voice. He said that we should go, my three sisters and I, to our mother to kiss her, to tell her that we love her, and . . . and to say goodbye to her. I saw the droplets of utter sorrow roll down his face as I was impaled by his words. Cancer had finally won its grueling, two-year battle with Glenda Johnson. As I said before, I did not go to that band competition though it was hardly a sacrifice to stay with my family in an hour of great need. We knelt beside her and wept like the babies we once and, in a way, always were. We were her babies . . . “were.” From that point on we could never be those babies again. For Mom we had to show the strength that she had demonstrated all our lives. Unfortunately that does not come easy.
    My sisters and I had had a bad childhood. We’d been through the abusive marriage, the divorce, the mental abuse from our real father, my surgery, poverty, James, other deaths, and many other delightful family issues. We had been through a lot by the time Mom came down with cancer. Now we would go through perhaps the worst and final trial of our childhood.
    Though we had understood when our mother said not to worry, we, of course, did. I moved in with her not long after we were informed of her condition. (Since the divorce two of my sisters and I lived with my biological father while my third sister lived with our mother.) She stayed mobile; up and about doing this and that for a while before she had to slow down, before the cancer grew. After she became bedfast, one of my sisters and I took shifts watching and tending to the woman who had done so for us since birth. We watched her slip away . . . though we do not regret helping her, it was terrible. It was torturous to watch her evanesce in such horrible agony. Later she began to sleep much more than normal. She got to where she slept more than she was awake. It was difficult to administer her medicine because she never wanted to stay up long enough to take it. It was as if during her last year she slowly passed on her strength to us. We grew as she withered. We were able to care for her properly, we, on our own accord began to take initiative to work out our schedules around our shifts. If there were a party or our friends wanted to go out and we needed to take care of Mommy, we simply did not go. It didn’t bother us though. We wanted to care for her, in hopes that she may get better though she continued on her path, spiraling downward in health.
    It became very difficult toward the end. Over the past two years she had done nothing but get worse and worse - not a sign of remission. It slowed down a little due to those horrid chemotherapy and radiation treatments, but not near as much as we would have liked it to. She got to where she would sleep for days waking up for her medicines sporadically, and even then, only with much effort. She lost her grip on reality. She dreamed so much that she could not distinguish them from her real life.
    The strongest woman I have ever known had broken and I along with her.
    We continued to care for her. We were there the whole time. I loved her and I wanted to be strong for her. If she had seen us break down and give into despair she wouldn’t have lasted as long as she did. She told us that she was more concerned about how we would take the news than she was about her condition. She would die for our happiness, if that’s what it took. She loved her children . . . and loving us meant sacrifice. We knew that so we cared for her till the bitter end.
    After nine months of initial shock and depression, I spent a lot of time dwelling on her life instead of her death. It’s been a year now and I have learned more of what she did for us as we grew up. I learned that she had been preparing us for this all along. She knew that she would not be around forever, and she loved us enough to ensure our future strength so that, no matter what, we would be happy. Through the seemingly little things that mothers do when you’re a kid she taught us many things. When we skinned our knees, she would doctor them and tell us playfully that “It’ll be alright.” When we were melancholy she told us that it would be okay if we would let it. We learned that death isn’t all that bad, that life really does go on; she gave us what it takes to be happy, come what may.