Sep 16
From Mourning To Healing
Twenty one years ago this week, my mother died of breast cancer – 8 days before she would have turned 58.
Mom’s passing blew my entire world apart. At 24, I couldn’t fathom living the rest of my life without her. As anyone who knew Mom would tell you, she was the embodiment of strength, resilience and positivity. During her first bout with breast cancer at 48, she quietly underwent radiation treatment, going into remission shortly thereafter. So when the disease returned seven years later, I had every reason to believe she would beat it once again. I naively clung to that belief, even while bearing witness to every stage of her decline.
Living at home at the time, I saw it all. The debilitating ravages of chemo. The increasing amount of time she spent sleeping. The slowing down of her once effervescent, bouncy walk. Still, denial is a pretty powerful thing, especially when it’s encouraged.
That summer, I had a long-planned two-week trip to London. Mom wouldn’t hear of me cancelling.
“Go and have a wonderful time, I’ll be better when you get back.”
She died six weeks later.
Dad insisted Mom had wanted me not to miss out on anything, to go on with my life. But that didn’t take away the overwhelming regret and guilt I felt about losing precious time with her. Once Dad was gone too – also from complications of cancer – I held on tightly to the things that reminded me of both of them. Her favorite books and antique knickknacks. Photographs and furniture from his office.
My home was pretty much a shrine. But it took a friend brave enough to say that for me to realize it.
“I don’t know how you can live like this. I can feel them everywhere and I didn’t even know them.”
Minutes after she said that, the night before Mother’s Day 2010, I finally began the long overdue process of letting go, parting with all but a handful of inherited items. Along with the kitchen and both bathrooms, my bedroom – modeled after Mom’s preferred style of décor (English Country frou frou) – underwent a makeover. I can still remember the sharp, crunching sound of the bedroom carpet being ripped up, the cathartic joy that flooded me. At long last, I was no longer living in the past.
That was the first turning point. The most significant came in 2016, when I had a nervous breakdown. I was hospitalized twice for depression and wrestled with thoughts of suicide. It took 18 excruciating months to find my way out of the darkness. The emotional core of my entire being shifted and with it, the weight of sadness about Mom and Dad. Having fought so hard for a second chance at living, I knew I could no longer allow grief to define me.
As anyone who’s been through loss knows, grief isn’t linear. There are stretches of time when I feel like I’m doing okay. And then there are moments when the searing pain of my parents’ absence hits me like a tidal wave. But the seismic difference is that pain doesn’t consume me anymore. It recedes more quickly than it used to. For years, I spent Mom’s anniversary curled up at home and crying. Today, while still carving out time to reflect and think about her, I go to work and get on with the business of living. I know that’s what Mom and Dad would both want for me.
It is said that the only reason to look back is to realize how far you’ve come. I used to feel like the best of my life was in the rearview mirror. Now, I feel like everything is ahead of me. Thank God for new beginnings.
Mar 26
Remembering A Cherished Friend
Earlier this month, I was on a cruise when I decided to text my dear friend Molly. We hadn’t been in touch since the holidays and she was on my mind. I told her I would call when I got home. Two days later, I found out on Facebook that Molly had passed away. She was 45.
Molly and I first got to know each other during our junior year in high school. I was new to NYC’s Nightingale-Bamford School, where most of the girls had established cliques going all the way back to kindergarten. Molly went out of her way to welcome me with open arms. We bonded quickly and easily over our shared love of the written word. Even then, she was a brilliant, thoughtful writer. She knew poetry (William Carlos Williams was a favorite). She contributed to Nightingale’s highly regarded literary magazine. While inhabiting that rarefied space of being both a great talent and intellectual, she was also incredibly open and loving. She radiated warmth.
Though we lost touch after graduation, Facebook helped us reconnect. Not long after my ill-fated move to L.A. three years ago, she was one of the first people to reach out to me. When we met for dinner, the time apart disappeared instantly as we shared everything about our lives past and present. I felt the same ease and joy in Molly’s company that I had in high school, deeply thankful to have her back in my life.
It was only at the end of the meal, almost as an aside, that Molly revealed she had metastatic breast cancer. I was knocked back. How could this gorgeous, vibrant woman be in the midst of fighting for her life? She spoke about it matter of factly and briefly, insisting I tell her more about how I came to be on the West Coast. I admitted that I had been struggling with depression and thoughts of hurting myself. She hugged me tightly and made me promise to call her if those thoughts ever returned. Just a few months later when that happened, Molly did so much more than pick up the phone.
In the middle of a weekday afternoon, she dropped everything to take me to hospital, staying by my side in the emergency room for hours until I was transferred — around midnight — to a psychiatric hospital outside of L.A. During that horrendous week, Molly visited me, brought me things from home and stayed in constant communication with my family. After I was discharged, she texted and called daily, giving me strength and hope when I had none of my own. Molly called me courageous. When I expressed my profound gratitude for all that she had done, she said with love—
“Thank you for allowing me to be there.”
That was Molly.
Even though both of my parents died of cancer, losing Molly to this horrible disease feels more unfair, more difficult to fathom. Mom and Dad’s declines were swift once their cancer metastasized, devastating but expected. Molly was already stage 3 when we reconnected three years ago. Treating it like a chronic condition, she attacked it ferociously from all angles, documenting her journey on her blog and Instagram. Last year, she appeared in a New York Fashion Week show benefitting Cancerland. I was fortunate to be in the audience, watching her glide down the catwalk with such power and beauty and never imagining that was to be the last time I would see her.
I will always be grateful for the tremendous blessing of Molly’s friendship. Her light will never be extinguished for all of us who knew and loved her. Rest in peace, my dear friend. You will reside in my heart forever.
