This Is My Mother

By Chali Grinnell

The shock of hearing my father crying for the first time in my life, was nothing compared to the shock of the words that came over the phone line with numbing clarity: "There was nothing the surgeon could do. With the operation, she has three more months of life; without it she would have had just three weeks. What am I going to do, Chal? "I was stunned."

As I tried to offer some feeble reassurance and then hung up the phone, my own tears started to flow. They came in a seemingly unstoppable torrent. The thought of losing my mother made me finally understand what it means to feel heartbroken and helpless. "I'm not ready to be without her," was the only coherent thought I had until my well of tears temporarily ran dry. The next few days were filled with making hurried arrangements for Jan and I and the kids to take a trip halfway around the world for an unknown length of time.

We finally arrived at Hartsfield International Airport in Atlanta and were picked up by a neighbour and friend of my parents. In spite of having travelled for over 22 hours straight we drove directly to the hospital where my mother was recovering from her abdominal surgery. The moments I spent with her alone in that small hospital room are some of the most precious of our 32-year long relationship.

Although a deep and sometimes overwhelming sadness was my constant companion, and snakes of fear, regret and anger would rear their heads at times over the next 2 months, I tried hard to just be grateful for and make good use of, the time I could spend with my mother. I watched her with pride and awe, as she endured her treatments, always calm and uncomplaining, but quietly determined not to be beaten.

In September of 1998, my mother, and best friend, was diagnosed with an unusual type of ovarian cancer. It is unusual because it did not originate in the ovaries, but instead was spread throughout her abdominal cavity. The growth covered most of the small intestine and touched parts of the liver, pancreas and large intestine. In the words of the surgeon who performed the exploratory abdominal surgery after the initial diagnosis, “It looked like someone had thrown a whole handful of cement inside. It was touching everything so I couldn't remove any of the tumour." After removing her ovaries and gall bladder and bypassing her small intestine, he closed her up and came out of the operating room to give my father the horrible prognosis.

Almost miraculously, after 8 months of chemotherapy, the disease seemed to go into remission and the outlook was better than we had ever dreamed of since the whole nightmare began. In fact, in Dec. of 1999 I got the best Christmas present I could wish for: my parents came to India for a 2-month visit. My mother looked as beautiful and as strong as ever, and seemed more at peace with herself and with the world than ever before. I started to allow myself to believe that the ordeal was over. I was wrong.

After they returned to the US in March of 2000, the results of her monitoring tests made her doctor believe that the cancer was active again. After further testing, his suspicions were confirmed. In May of this year we found out that the disease has spread to her lymph system. She is now undergoing a second round of chemotherapy, which again seems to be knocking the monster into submission. "But for how long?" is the question I ask myself constantly. Floating in limbo, waiting for answers, my own imagination is sometimes my worst enemy.

Through it all, my mother has maintained her dignity. She looks upon each day as an opportunity to grow and at the same time to find her centre and turn her focus inward. This is my mother, and I hope and wish and pray with all that I am that she will still be here many years from now to give my sons the same love and support that she has always given to me. And I still need her too.