On the day that my brother finished Chemo, I cried.

On the day that my brother finished Chemo, I cried. 

August 24th, 2012. The day he called me and told me that he had cancer in his head. His voice sounded so optimisitc. "Hey Sis"...was all I can remember aside from "Well, they found a mass in my head and they are saying it is cancer". From that sentence on I could not do anything but cry. 

January 25th, 2013. The day my brother finished all his treatment. Again, all I could do was cry.  His voice sounded tried. 7 weeks of radiation with three 8 hour treatments of concurrent chemo. Three weeks off then three 5 day hospitalizations for nonstop chemo. The cancer can not be found on the surface of his membrane, and we are praying for results that there is no cancer left underneath the membrane.

A lot took place between these dates. A lot of worry, prayer, crying, stress, break downs, lack of sleep, pacing. My brother took on and endured a dragon, although he called it the rock. He stared the dragon in the eye daily and although he had no strength, he chose to continue on and to fight. I have to admit, I was not thinking he would. I guess my pessimism is more prevalent than I thought. But he, with literally every ounce of energy he had, no matter how little it was, he fought. Now he may think he did not have a choice, but we all do. And he may think it was no big deal, but to us it is. No matter how ouchy and grouchy he was, he continued to fight. He is not one to really talk, but I know he was probably scared shitless. We all were. 

January 26th 2013.  A new chapter for my brother begins. A chapter that I hope is filled with second chances, with dreams come true, with fun to be had and energy to do it with. But most of all I hope this chapter is filled with continued remission and healing. We all tend to get caught up in daily living and forget how complicated we make things. I pray that as the days go on, my brothers life becomes less complicated. That he can now see how loved he is. To believe how life can be triumphant. And just for today, I hope my brother can sit back and relax and no longer worry about having to slay the dragon anymore.

A woman's hair is her crown of glory

Growing up my mother and I had very long blond hair.  I remember waking up in the early mornings before school to have my mother do my hair.  I remember the sleepy scent of her body from the night before as a waitress at Pat Joyce's in Cleveland, Ohio.  I remember how she would softly start at the bottom and make her way up through the tangles and snarls that only a little girl could perfect with long hair.  She would simply part it.  Then she would braid it and pull it up in a loop and hold it with a hair tie.  I would go to school with a braided loop on both sides of my head.  But the best was my Princess Leah buns!  She would braid my hair and rather than loop it she would wrap it in buns and plaster it with bobby pins to look like Princess Leah from Star Wars.  Now that to me was the best!

My mother always kept her hair in a bun when it was long.  She for some reason always kept it dyed "Ash" blond up until a few years before she passed.  But I remember when little she would let me brush it for her.  I would stand on the couch behind her and take long strokes and watch is fall to her back.  I remember I would become mesmerized watching it glisten as it fell to her back.  You never saw my mother out in public unless her hair was done and looking immaculate.  I am sure she rolls in her grave as I often go out with no make up on and my hair just pulled back in a pony tail with no class to it!

I remember one day telling me that a woman's hair was her crown of glory.  That men will look at you and be attracted to you by the way your hair is.  I am not so sure about this, but she fully believed it.  She would often tell me if my hair was looking good or give me it looks god awful, go do something different with it before you leave the house lecture.  I am believing that this was all a part of her "look as if someone owns you" stance. But none the less, you were to wear your crown of glory as just that.....A Crown.

I can only imagine the depression she went through as chemo thinned her hair or when they had to shave a big spot on her head when she had brain cancer.  Her crown of glory became tarnished and slightly skewed.  She could no longer keep her crown polished, but she looked as if cancer owned her.  But I feel she failed to realize one thing.   A woman's hair is not her crown of glory.  A woman's crown of glory is her tenacity to fight cancer, to hold her head high with a bald head and say "You do not own me".   For all women come in many different shapes and sizes.  Some have beautiful flowing hair, others have frizzy, short hair.  But it is the women with no hair that show the world how beauty should be defined.  And that is by their spirit to carry on and fight and to show the world that even though they do not have hair they are just as beautiful!  A woman's crown of glory is her life and the inner beauty that radiates out~

More Creations~

You do not have to travel the globe to help, sometimes you just need to cross the street~

My mother came to America at the ripe old age of 17 from Stoke-on-Trent, England to be a nanny.  She traveled to globe in search of the American Dream, in hopes to live the glam and glitz of what was seen on the movie screen.  She was always one for appearances, you never saw her without make up and dressed in a way that she envisioned as the American Dream, her hair always done up, with the absolute care.....although, in my teenage mind I was saying "really?"....pretty typical for a teenager!

You were to "mind your p's and q's" and "look as if someone owned you".  Of which the later one always disturbed me.....but she said it ALL the time! So it must have been a humbling reality when she realized that working as a waitress that she needed help and one day went to welfare and asked for assistance.  The American Dream became just that...a Dream.  But I can tell you, as a child I thought we won the lottery with a grocery store!  I remember a time before this "jackpot" happened things were so tight that I believed that the only food available was the school lunches- of which my brothers and I got through government funding, and egg sandwiches, or when my Aunt Kathy would come and get us and keep us with her for a week or two in the summers.  I remember going to a food bank in which we would get food and free clothes- "hand me downs" was the name brand in our house because even K-mart was too expensive. And I will never forget the one day my mother had $2 and we drove to a gas station on fumes to buy the cheapest cookies she could find for a treat-because it had been so long since we had any- and they were the best tasting cookies ever! I actually buy them still as a reminder of how far I have come.  But one day, my mother, which I am sure she was filled with embarrassment, went to ask for help.  We came home from school to find a house filled with food.  She did not have to travel the globe to ask for help, but I am sure it felt like it.

I often wonder if my mother dragged her feet asking for help for her cancers, out of her still active thoughts of reaching the American Dream?  I often wonder what would have happened if she stayed in England where they have socialized medicine, if she would have gotten help sooner.  I remember after every cancer she did not look like she was living the American Dream.  Although I remember her trying to put her make-up on for radiation treatments, or to go out in public. Or trying to dress comfortably due to abdominal incisions after her colon cancer.  But what really got me was when she had brain cancer. It was very apparent the her American Dream was no longer available.  With a gaping spot of shaved head, the inability to dress herself, her trying to look "as if someone owned her".  Unfortunately at that time, CANCER owned her.  I often regret being in Georgia during this time.  But the week I was able to go home a month before she passed, I was able to care for her in ways that I never thought I would have to care for her.  But the one thing that always stays with me was I was able to crawl into bed with her and just cuddle with her.  I remember she started to cry and she apologized for the way she looked.  Even in her darkest moment she was worried about her appearance.  She said she was sorry for all that she did  and not being able to give us the best.  I remember rubbing her spot that was healing on her head and telling her that she did the best she could.  I remember crying with her.  My mother was never one to ask for help or forgiveness for that matter, but that day she asked me to forgive her for not being able to provide the way that she wanted to.  And I remember telling her that at this moment in time, as we lay in this bed, you have provided me more that anything that money could buy in this moment.

So you do not have to travel the globe to help, sometimes you just need to cross the street.  Or sometimes you just need to look within and find a person within arms reach to help.  My mother helped me that day in her bed, and helped to realize that there is so much more to life than appearances, and to material possessions of the "American Dream".  It may be as simple as reaching out and just being with someone and doing a kind gesture.  And that is the reason for Karma Caps.

Angels I have heard on high~

The Holidays.....my mother loved the holidays.  It was a time to decorate, cook, sing, get stressed and prepare for dysfunctional family gatherings.  However, the holidays, no matter which way you cut it, it is a time of reflection. To reflect on the old, the new, the forgotten, the mistakes, and the angels that God places in your life.

When I look back to when my mother had her first cancer, I was oblivious to the responsibilities of parenthood. Having two children of my own, I now know that my mother, on top of her cancer, was more concerned about providing a holiday season for us than battling her inconvenience.  My mother was one that liked to go all out for the holidays.  Thanksgiving was a feast fit for an army.  Down to the homemade gravy, to the plates, napkins, all was dressed in a spectacular display of how she envisioned the rich to celebrate.  Christmas.  Wow is all I can say.  I believe this was my mothers favorite holiday.  The inside of our house would be transformed into a winter wonderland and over the years it exploded into a kids dream of wonder.  Only I was already older by the time it hit this, but I know my children would have relished in it.

I remember this was the first time that our family was sponsored by a family that could afford to provide for us as well as their own family.  These are some of the angels I was talking about.  I remember my mother was very weak from her radiation treatments.  I remember coming home from school and she was on the couch and looked upset.  I remember her telling me that she tried to go shopping with this husband and wife and she just could not do it.  She got a few things in the cart and had to leave or pass out.  So this family shopped for her.   They took time out of their lives for us.  To spend money on us.   A woman that they did not know, with cancer, with three children who they had no clue what we liked.  For them I will always be grateful and it is because of them that I believe in doing the same.  To give to those in need.

But the Angel that came to us that winter was not only this family, but a family that I would always be in debt to.  My stepfather and his family.  Although he was not my stepfather til years later, he stayed.  He began to date my mother not too long before her diagnosis.  He was a man, with no children of his own.  Dating a woman with three!!! children and a woman who was just diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian and uterine cancer.  Not only did he start to date her, but he stayed with her.  And he stayed with us!  I was not raised with grandparents due to my mother was an immigrant from England over here on a work visa.  But I never knew I  could be loved so much by strangers. They took my mother everyday to her radiation treatments for six weeks, 5 days a week.  They gave to us as if we were there own.   I remember this Christmas clearly.  For it was filled with family, not by blood, but by love.  It was filled with strangers who gave to our family.  To make sure my mother did not have to worry, to make sure we had presents, to make sure we had joy.  For God knows what He is doing when He places people in your life.  He may not give you the answers or the test results you want, or the possessions you want.  But He gives to you in unspoken ways that will always permeate through you.  For He gives you angels on this earth.  I am thankful for these angels and I will never forget, and I will always give back in the spirit that was given to me!

My mothers signature

There are times in your life when it feels like you are in a movie and telling yourself "nah...what ever, just move out of the way before the train smacks you" because you have seen it before and know what is about to happen.   But you just stand there. Waiting to prove the ending wrong.  Looking down the tracks, you see the light.  A pin size, then a pencil size, a plate size light and before you know it, it is right in front of you.  Just wishing you would have moved. Hoping you are on the right side of the tracks, only to catch the breeze and feel the energy radiating from off the ground.  To tell yourself...see I knew I would not be hit.  But dammit, if only that was true.

I remember the day I returned back to school after my mother had her first surgery.  I was in 9th grade at Buckeye High School.  I was out for a week.  Out due to my mother had no one else to help take care of her.  I remember.  I was called into the principles office.  I remember sitting in the hallway.  Nervous.  I was a quiet person.  Never demanded attention, nor did I really want it.  To fly under the radar to not get caught up in others drama.  But I sat there.  Finally, I was called in.  Okay...........breathe.

I remember the diatribe of the policy of attendance. How important it is to be in school.  How important an education is...blah blah blah.  I remember thinking I would have rather been in school than at the hospital, at home, changing bandages, helping my mother throw up.  I would have loved to have been in a classroom, sitting in boring lectures.  Getting caught up in drama in the hallway.  But no, I was not.

I remember the principal asking why my mother did not come to this meeting.  I simply looked at him and said "Sir.  To no disrespect to you, but I have had other things to worry about than having my mother call and explain why I was not in school.  My mother has cancer.  My mother is a single mother, with 3 children.  We do not have the luxury of having help.  We are on welfare. We do not have friendly neighbors to come help us.We live in government housing where people would rather be doing crack.  So, if it is alright with you, I will gladly write you an essay of what I have learned and been educated on that is not taught in school.  But I promise you I studied hard.  I will have my mother write a letter of excuse and attach her hospital discharge papers if you need.  But I will be in school when the doors are open, because I would rather be no where else, if only to get a break.

I still have the essay I wrote. With my mothers signature. What I would do to have her here to sign this.

Normal???? I despise that word~

You know the sound that a record player needle makes when it scratches across the record, trying to grasp the melody that it lost, but just can not seem to catch it.  Well that is the sound that I heard when we were in the doctors office as he told my mother she had stage 3 cervical and ovarian cancer.  She had let it go and go due to being a single mom, working, taking care of 3 kids on the brink of the emotional, self centered teen years, trying to rebuild after our house burnt down the year before and trying to have a normal life herself.....what ever that may be for a single mom with no time for herself.

But that noise.  You want so badly for it to catch the song, the melody and if it worked out right, it would catch it at the beginning of your favorite line to sing along with.  But it did not. 

"Ms. Mackie, you have cancer".  I remember my mother sitting there very stoic.  Emotionless.  Stunned and trying to remain composed.  Statue like.  I knew what cancer was at that time, seeing many other family members have had it.  But I still did not comprehend the path it takes.  Maybe like the flu.  You would feel bad for a bit, but then after awhile, you would begin to return back to normal.  Normal?????? I despise that word~

There is nothing normal with a person after they have been diagnosed with cancer.  I can only speak vicariously through what my mother went through, but nothing in my life was ever normal.  Especially after that day.  I remember the doctor going through treatment options.  First there would be an operation.  Second that, if they did not get it all, radiation.  Radiation is a whole different ball game to say the least.  That would entail another operation to place a "seed" in the area close to were the cancer is.  Then six weeks of going to the hospital monday through friday to be exposed to a solid stream of radiation to try to kill the cancer.  If that did not work, then chemotherapy.  Not to mention.....my mother was a single mom with three children embarking on teenage waste land.

You see normal is lost to a cancer patient.  Their day comes to a screetching halt like the noise a needle makes trying to grasp a melody.  The melody that day ended.  The band broke up. The instruments began to collect dust.  The record player could not be fixed.  What awaited us was a life that was everything but normal.