Four Inches

The scar is just over four inches across. Just above the pubic area, under my lower-most bits of belly fat. It hurts like hell. My understanding is that they opened up this wound and discovered a much bigger mass than they expected. Almost certainly nothing but a benign - if painful - fibroid tumor. But, still. They were expecting a tangerine. They got a grapefruit. From the four inch incision they removed my uterus (which housed the tumor), my cervix, and my fallopian tubes. My healthy and productive ovaries remain in tact. Of course, getting to this meant cutting through not only skin, but fat and muscle and I-don't-know-what-else. Which is why this hurts so much, even a week later, and will keep hurting, I hear, for several weeks.

Imagine someone kicking the shit out of you with his steel-toe Doc Martins. Now imagine that guy is giving you this ass-kicking not from the curb or some street corner, but from the inside out. Yes. Imagine this steel-toe-booted thug is living in your abdominal cavity, and kicking the ever-living shit out of you from inside your own body. That's what it feels like. That little bastard is lucky to have such excellent cover. If anyone tried to pull this shit on me from the outside, I'm pretty sure I'd murder them. Instead, I just keep taking pain-killers that do little more than take the edge off, and brace myself before doing anything drastic. Like breathing. Or sitting. Or standing. So, yeah....I brace myself for everything. This morning, a sneeze made me see stars and call out for my mother, who hasn't been alive since 2010.

I expected the physical pain (although I have to admit I never imagined it being quite THIS intense and unrelenting) but the other pain comes as a surprise to me. The uterus they cut out of me never housed anything more than a fibroid. Babies never sprung from it. George Washington did NOT sleep here. I'm sad about this, and a little guilty. Not that I was in any position ten days ago to do anything about it: I am 47 years old and perimenopausal. Still, the finality of this is really difficult to deal with. I keep thinking about my mother and my grandmother, both of whom seemed made for motherhood. They were both really fucking good at it, too. Growing up under their auspices, I learned to value motherhood above all other callings. Somehow, though, I never felt it would be right to try and tackle it myself, even though I love children, and have always wanted them. Now, long after it's too late to double back and rethink the choices I've made, I'm filled with both sadness and guilt. Sadness for obvious reasons. Guilt? I feel as if I've let the fine women who came before me down. They set such a great example, but I never picked up the proverbial ball and ran with it. They shared so much with me, in a way that one can only share with one's flesh and blood. I don't have a daughter to pass it all along to. It's ridiculous that I should find this painful: I've never even WANTED a daughter, but a son.  Now, though, at 47, and medically barren, I feel sad about not having brought another generation of girls into my direct line. In fact, my direct line will end, forever, with me. I can't help but think this would make both my mother and my grandmother a little sad; that they gave me so much, and I haven't made provisions for it all to keep going forward. And, now, through the decision to get this surgery (which will improve my quality of life, but was in no way an emergency procedure that saved my life in any way, as far as I know) I've made it all very final. My brain knows that they would understand. That, in fact, they DO understand, wherever they are, now, both part of everything.  My gut, though, my aching gut keeps wanting to apologize and tell the best women I've ever known that I've meant no disrespect by making such different choices. I'm not even completely happy with some of those choices, but they're irrevocable, and I have no choice but to make peace with them.

A couple of days ago, a doctor who is not my regular physician had occasion to look at my scar.  "How beautiful!" She exclaimed, "That's a lovely bit of work and a gorgeous scar. And it's healing so well and so quickly. You and your surgeon could be the poster children for tidy surgery and optimal healing! You're barely going to see this, when the healing is complete."

I'll see it.  Always. All four inches of it.

1460 Days

Dear Ma,

1460 days ago, we spoke for the last time. Or, rather, it's been that long since I last heard your actual voice in reply. I remember everything about that day. The worst day of my life. And not a day has passed, during these 1460 days, not one day has passed when I haven't thought of you. Maybe even more than before, which is difficult to imagine, given how close we always were.

People say it gets easier. People mean well, but they’re full of shit. It gets different. You get used to it. It never gets easier.

Right now, Ma, I have half a dozen things I wish I could call you and talk to you about, and get your opinions and advice about. Just about every day, I want to pick up the phone and tell you about work stuff. Or ask a question about cooking. Or have a heart-to-heart with you about love and women, and the crazy mess that part of my life has been. I want to compare notes with you about our spinal disease. I want to tell you that the other day I looked at a recent photo of myself and thought for a second it was a photo of you, and that that made me happy. I'm getting a hysterectomy next month. Did you know that? Yes, I suppose you must know, now that you're part of everything. I suppose there's nothing you don't know.

I remember your sad reaction when I was 17, and I told you I would never have children. You loved kids. So did Abuela. It must be where I get that from. It's not that I never wanted them, but that I felt they weren't in the cards for me. This made you sad. Even many years later, when I was in a long-term relationship with a woman I assumed I’d be with for life, and I asked how you would feel if she and I decided to have a baby, your eyes lit up: "What do you mean how would I feel? I'd be happy to have another grandchild. When are you planning on it?" I had to double back and explain it had just been a hypothetical question, we had no such plans, and that my partner didn't care for the idea of parenthood. You looked so disappointed. I don't think I ever got to tell you how very much it meant to me that your reaction had nothing to do with the idea of two women having and raising a baby together, and everything to do with your wanting me to have everything you thought a person should have in life, including love and children. It meant the world to me.

But, of course, I will never have this. The kids, I mean. I won’t have them because I’m 47, and haven’t had them yet, so that ship has sailed. I’ve made choices in life, and now I have to live with them. Still, the finality of having that whole organ removed does bring it all home for me. I wish I could call you and tell you how bummed I am that I never gave you another grandchild. Really, the prospect of having you as a grandmother should have been reason enough for me to bring a child into the world. Like Abuela, you were at your best around children – especially babies.

One thing Lenore and I inherited from you is a great memory. People often doubt me when I say this, but I promise you it’s true: I remember being a baby. I remember what it felt like to be wrapped in your arms as you carried me around. I remember the look on your face when you sang to me at night. I remember being a toddler, and sitting on your feet, facing you and holding your hands as you sat on the couch – the way you’d raise your legs up and lift me off the ground, and how we would both laugh. I remember getting a big gash on my leg when I was three or four years old, and how you picked me up and held me close as your ran up the street to the Methodist Hospital E.R., the blood from my wound dripping down between us. You were crying as you ran with me in your arms, and that puzzled me, because my mother wasn’t afraid of anything. I remember the night Abuela died, how you knew to look for me in the darkness of her rooms and say nothing but, instead, just hold me in your arms as if I were still that wounded four-year-old whose mother could make everything okay, again. I remember everything.

When someone dies, people say a lot of things that don’t mean anything. They need to fill in space and silence. They want to make you feel better. I know they mean well, but I don’t have patience for that. Neither did you. When you died, I heard every variation of “it gets easier.” I blocked out most of what people said to me, because most of it was less than useful. The one thing I did hear, and which is a kindness I’ll never forget, was, “One thing you can be sure of – there was never anything between you and your mother that went unsaid. Too many of us lose a loved one and are filled with regret at that which remained unsaid and undone. You will never have to feel that, because the two of you said it all. There was no unfinished business.”

This is true, Ma. You and I had no unfinished business. We did not take time, or each other, for granted. I’m glad of this but, if we never left anything unsaid, it’s also true that I’ll never run out of things I wish we could still talk about. I talk to you, still, as nutty as some people may think that is, but it’s not the same without your reply.

People say it gets easier. People are wrong. It never gets easier. We just get used to missing those who have left us behind. I'm used to missing you, Ma, but it hasn't gotten any easier.

I love you.

- Lana

Being There

A few days ago, I got back from visiting family. It was a great visit, but a difficult one. It was my first time visiting since losing my mother. Life without my mother has been so hard, at times. I don't mean to get all dark - I'm actually very happy in my life, right now - but there are moments when I don't even know how I manage to get by in a world without my mother. She loomed large for me.

While visiting, I spent a lot of time with my nephews. Their parents are going through a pretty messy/nasty break-up. Their dad - a man I always loved as a brother - has decided that a break-up with his wife means a break-up with his children. The children he was always so close to. The children who he always said were his best friends. The youngest child - my beautiful, 6 yr old nephew - can't understand why his dad never calls, never picks him up for visits, anymore, and doesn't respond to the many phone messages he's left him. In his six year old mind, he's done something to cause this, and there really is no way to let him know that nothing that's happened is his fault.

There's no way to explain to a six year old that the father who was always such a great guy has recently turned into a self-centered asshole who is more interested in pissing off his ex-wife, than in loving his children.

Witnessing what this abandonment has done to this precious boy made me think about my own parents. I adored (still adore) my mother. She was my best friend. When I think about why losing her has had such a profound effect on me, the reason is ridiculously clear: I miss her because SHE WAS THERE. She was there for me. Always. Every day. She offered unconditional love and support. She never walked away. She always answered my calls. I knew, absolutely, that I could count on her. That's it, and that's everything. She was always there, and now, she isn't. Of course there's a huge, gaping hole. When I made mistakes, she was there. When I was obnoxious, she was there. When I needed bailing out of situations, she was there. When I did anything that warranted recognition, she was there. When I was sick, she was there. When I woke up in the morning and needed someone to talk to over a cup of coffee, she was there. When I said I was in love with a woman and was going to move to the other side of the planet to build a life with her, she was there.

I am not saying that we never argued, or that we never got on one another's nerves.

I'm not saying that my mother was a saint.

If anything, I'm saying that she was so very human.

What I'm saying is that she was there. She didn't walk away. She didn't turn her back on me, ever. She was always there, and I always knew she'd be there. I could count on her to be there for me. Because real parents don't leave. They just don't. I'm 45 years old and, if my mother were alive, today, she'd still be there for me. I was so blessed, for so long, that not having her makes me ache.

It's natural for a 45 year old to ache like this. A six year old isn't supposed to. A six year old shouldn't have to ask himself what he's done to make his father leave. A six year old shouldn't be having dreams about telling his dad not to cut into a friend's birthday cake, and then having his father walk away in anger over being denied a slice of cake.

You probably won't read this, but in the slim chance that you do: Be as mad at my sister as you like. Hate her, for all I care. Call her whatever names you like. But, be a man, when it comes to your kids. Be there, asshole.

© 2012 Lana M. Nieves

Limited Licensing: I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the Creative Commons Attribution license, granting distribution of my copyrighted work without making changes, with mandatory attribution to Lana M. Nieves and for non-commercial purposes only. - Lana M. Nieves