Today, Tommy is 8 1/2 (don't forget that 1/2 year mom!) and over all a thriving, handsome and most loving boy. He has many side effects from the chemo - ALL of it has angered me. Nobody knows half the battles he and we face, the emotional roller coaster has left joy for his living today and heartache for all he has had to endure to survive the horrible disease.
I have learned recently even more complications that he can possibly face and I'm just so sad and mad for a boy who has never known life without the hurdles, the pain and effects of cancer. My pain runs deep and I often have let that pain run my life, often making a more negative effects on all of us. There's no amount of self help books that prepares a family to deal with it all. You have to WANT to change and MAKE the changes to get the results you really want.
Recently, my only brother died at the young age of 46 from cancer. He did not want to die and we did not have the relationship that I wish we could have had, but we had was what he and I were willing to give...wasn't much. Let me rephrase, wasn't enough and now I live in regret that I didn't have what I think we could have or should have had as brother and sister.
Death is such a final event. Gone, silent, emotionally one sided, painful and full of memories. Use to think that when the mom died, the family always fell apart because mom's love is the glue to the bonding of the family. I might have been partly right on that assumption, but in the end, a week family will crumble with the first family death if it is not rightly centered on the family foundations. We had family foundations, but after 17 years of living away, I realized as I looked at the pictures of my family and brother at his memorial that I have been gone for 17 years. That's a long time and let's face it, in 17 years no matter who you are, you are going to grow and change for the good or worse.....but you're going to change based on your life experiences.
It's in the reflections of the last 17 years that I realized that I had been fighting for the same middle ground that I had been fighting for as a child - a spot in the foundation and never making the footing. Lies, stories, with holding information and secrets were unraveling, just like a lose thread of fine woven silk. Leaving a snag and imperfection on the fabric of which it was woven from. It wasn't perfect any more, it wasn't beautiful and now it had a week spot. Like a skilled tailor would do, that thread was pulled away and eventually was cut from the cloth it once was made from.
I am that thread - no longer a part of the cloth that I was from. I didn't want to be separated, but the day I attended my brother's memorial, I realized the cloth had been tailored to fit it's surroundings "as-is". I was no longer part of that fabric. It was evident to all whom attended my brother's service, sister's not talking to each other, as my parents sat with the youngest of the family, me and one of my sisters in a separate row and my dad taking a phone call in the middle of ceremony, that this family has suffered and is still suffering. Now it's another suffering of a death, only we are all alive but what we had is now a death.
They say when there is a death, there is a birth. All I know is that cancer SUCKS! I have vowed to Tommy to be here with him every day and support him to make it through his challenges first and find the strength to show and live by my unconditional love that I highly regard for him, his daddy and sister!
Today, Sean would be 47 years old. Happy Birthday handsome! I wish I could hear you, hope that you hear me and can have some light on healing us all.
xo,
Kee
FOC
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