My mother was told in October- specifically on the day after her birthday  – that she had advanced pancreatic cancer and “very little time” left. I think I heard the words “three month” but even I knew that was optimistic. As it was she died on the 17th, a week after she found out the diagnosis. We had prepared for a longer time – prepared by getting things; I don’t know how I was preparing to get through the actually process emotionally – Mother’s and mine.

But she died. And that was that. Only it wasn’t that. It wasn’t a step-by-step powering down; it was a quick brownout and then, like that, it was done. It was not a Tuesdays with Morrie situation. Had she made it three months, she would have passed away this month, this January and I don’t know what we would have gone through or what she would have endured.

I wonder if we had not told her the diagnosis right away – if we had put her on the sofa and told her she just had to sleep and rest and watch DVD movies and the Colts games and plan for when she had built herself back up. Probably she would have pushed it, not rested, tried to hurry building up her strength and caused herself intense discomfort and eventually the emotional agony of knowing we had deceived her.

She was not one to take things lying down; she was so feisty. I wish she could have a had a couple of weeks of comfortable interaction with the world, the saying of things that maybe she wanted to say. But I suppose that was not her nature.