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An Anniversary:

I didn't sleep well last night, I tossed and turned most of the night and when i did sleep, i dreamed of being kept awake all night by ghosts in my mothers room. I never saw them, but they'd shut doors in front of me, holding them closed, open and close the shower curtain, turn off and on lights, I prayed there, in her room, in my dream. I've never been a religious person, at least not in the christian sense, i've always been spiritual I suppose, but it's not the same thing. But there I was in my dream, praying.

The dream I think was brought about by a single event in my life. This saturday morning is the 8 year anniversary of my mother's death from cancer. I was 14 when she died, just barely in freshman year of highschool. She'd been sick for two years and had a rare form of cancer that was inflamatory, there were no tumors to remove or treat, there was nothing really to be done but watch her go through chemo and gt sicker and sicker. We didn't even know she had cancer until she was bitten by a spider one night and we took her into the hospital when her side began to swell and burn, the spider had infected her with some sort of organism that could live without oxygen, while they were treating it they happened to find one cancer cell in thier test slides and decided to do a biopsy. I still remember the day my dad shaved her head because her hair kept falling out in clumps. She's joke after that, that everyone at the bank where she worked would compliment her wig thinking it was her actual hair and liking how she'd had it styled. On a bad day i'd remember her laying in bed, watching tv, our kitten Orie laying between her legs, keeping her company. I remember those days happening alot.

Then, one day, we went to school like normal, at 2 in the afternoon, an hour and 15 minutes before the day ended as I sat in algebra 2 a note was delivered from the office to report to the counselor. I'll never forget the sinking feeling, knowing right then that if they were summoning me to the councelor, mom must have died. I'll never forget the looks on my freinds faces in class as i held up the note and silently left the class. I hardly remember the walk across campus to the councelors room, but i remember getting there to see my dad sitting on the councelors couch, ashen faced and silent. My twin sister arrived a few moments after me and we all cried in that room, the councelor outside the door.

It was a long time till we actually went home, i don't think anyone really wanted to go inside. Mom had gotten her hospital bed moved there and had been being taken care of during the day by our sister Kim. Later we found out that mom had died at about 8:30 that morning, just as classes were beginning. No one had come to tell me or my sister till that afternoon after they'd had time to remove her body and clean the room of any traces of her. I think there will always be a little anger that we weren't told till hours later, but at the same time I think i'm glad we were allowed that one day to be normal rather than to sit at home watching them carry her out.

The funeral was that weekend, on a saturday, everyone attended, relatives i haven't seen in years from all over the country came, i didn't cry, i sat there silently, observing, right up until my neice cary who was just 5 or 6 who was sitting behind me began to cry, it was like the crowd gave one shuddering breath and everyone broke down. It turned out that our mother had set aside a good deal of money before she died, leaving instructions for my father do do one thing for us girls once she was gone. You see, there are 6 of us kids, 5 girls, one boy. Mom had left instructions for dad to go to the local jeweler once she died and pick up something she'd had picked out for us. Each of us got a single 24k gold rose pin which each of us wore to her funeral, and every birth, death, wedding and special occasion every since. A reminder that she's with us.

In Memory of De Anne Cary Davenport, January 28th 1998 who was survived by her husband jim and her 6 children; Cary, Jamie, Kim, Deana, Donald and Essie.