They say confession heals the soul....

When I was little I was a worry wart.  Heck who am I kidding? I am still a worry wart. I worry about EVERYTHING.  My family often says that they don't worry about anything because they know I'll worry enough about it for everyone.  And I do. I don't remember my parents arguing when I was little. But I know they must have because I remember asking my mama over and over if her and my daddy would ever get divorced.  Her answer was always the same, "Never!"

Never isn't a very long time because when I was 14 my parents separated and when I was 17 they divorced.   I mentioned this to my mom years ago and asked her if she remembered me always asking about her and daddy being divorced. She said that she did and she should never have told me that they wouldn't get divorced.  She said you can never tell what will happen in the future and that was the lesson she learned from that.




Somewhere around the same time I was trying to get my mom to stop smoking.  Arguably I was trying in the wrong way. Instead of encouragement I was basically bribing her, shaming her, and basically bullying her in hopes that she would quit.  My grandfather smoked all of his life and he developed lung cancer because of it. Towards the end of his life he was unable to care for himself and his family was called in. I remember my mom and her sisters sitting with him, caring for him. They had to do everything for him.  And then several years after that my mothers father-in-law (her second husband's step-father) developed lung cancer. He went through basically the same thing. Only this time it was only my mother caring for him.  So during this time that I was trying to get her to quit smoking I said to her, "What if you get lung cancer, mama? Who's gonna take care of you? Me!  That's who!  Do you want me to have to do that for you like you did for papa and Earl?" And her reply was, "No, I won't get to that point. I would rather die than be a burden to y'all"

Now if you've been reading through my blog then you know my mom has lung cancer. If you don't then there you are. Her lung cancer is the kind that non-smokers get, so the doctor says that whether or not she smoked is irrelevant. But she hasn't been doing well lately. She's had pneumonia a couple of times and basically she has felt horrible.  My brother calls and checks on her daily, my sister texts her all throughout the week, and I call a couple times a week.  And she hadn't told any of us that she was doing so poorly. We found out when she had to call one of her sisters for help.  I was frustrated with her and called her to find out why she wasn't calling. She said that she didn't want to be a burden on us. She reminded me of what she'd said about that all of those years ago.  I felt floored. I told her we'd rather care for her for years than lose her now. That she wasn't a burden and we loved her.

I think the reason she feels this way is my fault. If I hadn't badgered her so much and carried on about how I would have to take care of her then she wouldn't feel like a burden. I really didn't mean that I wouldn't want to take care of her. I was just trying to shame her into quitting smoking. And I'm ashamed of myself now. And more than that I am ashamed that my mother now considers herself a burden. She's not. She never has been and never will be. And I hope that somehow I can get that through her thick head.

I love you mama.  And I'm sorry.