Hindsight: I Get It Now, Mom

Not too long ago, I had the, “I Totally Understand Cancer Because Both of My Parents Had Cancer” mindset. This arrogance began soon after my mom was diagnosed with Stage 3 Ovarian Cancer in 2008. My ignorance unfortunately lasted for over a decade but was thankfully interrupted by my own cancer diagnosis.

Mere minutes after my dad, my sister, and I received Mom’s diagnosis, we watched over her as she slowly woke up in her hospital bed following surgery. Sensing our worry, with her eyes still closed, she commented, “Wow. I must really look like shit.” Only Mom could have found humor in such an incredibly horrific moment and inevitably “mommed” the situation so that none of us would worry. It was from that traumatically-funny moment on, that I was led to believe that we didn’t need to worry about Mom’s diagnosis. She was fine, and that was that.

Hindsight: Moms are great actresses.

Mom’s chemotherapy appointments lasted all day. Once they unhooked her port, she would ask my sister or I to drive her to Whole Foods Market so she could buy groceries for dinner. Each time we went, she tried to buy me an overpriced sweatshirt that she knew I wanted, despite my pleas for her to not spend money on me. I’d think to myself, “Twenty minutes ago, she was hooked up to a machine that was pumping her body full of poison. And now, she’s arguing with me about letting her spend $50 on a sweatshirt from Whole Foods because I will ‘get a lot of wear out of it.’” I inevitably won the argument, and I never let her buy it.

Once we returned home, Mom made us dinner. She cleaned the entire kitchen after we ate, and then stayed up with me until God-knows-when, watching recorded episodes of Grey’s Anatomy. It was almost as if she hadn’t been slowly poisoned 12 hours prior.

From an outsider’s perspective, cancer wasn’t an issue for Mom. According to her, her oncology appointments were always anticlimactic. “Remission” was a word she used as casually as any other. She never used the word “recurrence” when the time came, though. Instead, Mom used the phrase, “It’s back again,” as flippantly as she would describe an ingrown toenail or tax season.

I’m positive Mom had routine PET scans, but she never mentioned them. Knowing her, she didn’t want me to worry. Even more likely, she probably didn’t want me to go with her to the appointments and miss any of my classes. Al can’t miss class, she’s in graduate school. Admittedly, I was unaware of 90% of her cancer experience.

Flash-forward to 2022, when I received my own cancer diagnosis. At this point, Mom had been gone for almost ten years, as her cancer eventually won the unfair battle on January 14, 2013. I didn’t have either of my cancery parents to confide in during this time, so I used my mom’s nonchalant attitude towards her cancer as a template for my own battle with the Big C.

It was shortly after my very first brutal round of ABVD that I realized: holy shit. Every single opinion I had about my mom’s experience was totally wrong. Granted, she’s not here to confirm or deny this, but I can guarantee that she lied to me, daily. To protect me.

It took my own cancer diagnosis to finally realize the obvious:

Mom *did* get tired. She *was* worried. Mom *absolutely* had scanxiety. She cried, alone. Maybe she cried in the car, or maybe in the shower. Grocery shopping was the *absolute last thing* she felt like doing after chemo. But she wanted YOUR life to stay as normal as possible.

Mom made a big deal about buying you an overpriced sweatshirt, because she felt lucky to be up and walking around the store with you. She knew things about her own mortality that you didn’t. To you, it was too much money for her to spend on you. But to her? It was one final way she could “mom” you.

So now, as a recently-sick mom, I know this exact feeling. I cherish the small moments with my boys, because I don’t know what my future holds. I, too, will eventually try to buy them their own versions of “the overpriced sweatshirt.” And it will break my heart if they win that argument like I did with my mom.

Hindsight is always 20/20, and sometimes it’s a giant bitch. Right now, it’s definitely both.

Sometimes I imagine that my (now toddler) boys are in their twenties, and I find out that my cancer is winning. Would I tell them and fill them with the fear of losing me? Or would I protect them like Mom protected me, hoping to delay their inevitable heartbreak? I can’t possibly answer that question today, but I do know that I will try to do whatever is best for them if that time ever comes.

As mad as I was that Mom hid important details from me (like, the overall status of her cancer, for one), I now understand why she did it. She hid the ugliness from me just like I’m hiding the ugliness from my own boys now. There are so many details that I might not ever share with them, no matter how old they get. They don’t need to be burdened with unnecessary sadness. I completely understand why Mom kept so much of her cancer to herself. My boys will always be my little boys, whether they’re 5 and 2, or 25 and 22.

Hindsight: I get it now, Mom.

Ask anyone who knew her: Emily Frances Fifolt was indescribably awesome. She was a 6’10” powerhouse shoved into a tiny 5’2” gray-haired frame. She was, in the wise words of John Mayer, bigger than her body.

My cancer has, for better or for worse, humanized my mom. As much as I want to grant her a superhuman legacy, she was, at the end of it all, a human being. She carried the weight of this terrible disease on her small shoulders, in order to protect her family.

She didn’t deserve to go through that experience alone. I am so lucky to have platforms where I can openly share my personal experience with cancer. My mom didn’t have that luxury, and it makes me incredibly sad to think that she kept her experience all to herself. My new-found perspective simultaneously breaks my heart and makes me so proud of the human that Mom was.

I never thought I’d have anything kind to say about my cancer, but I will give credit where credit is due: my diagnosis has allowed me to openly share some of the same terrifying and lonely moments that Mom privately and bravely endured all by herself. My cancer, ironically, has helped me better understand Mom’s experience, and, in turn, better understand her—as both a human and as a mother.

So, Ma, I’m sure you already know this, but… I bought the damned sweatshirt. I’ve had it for 11 years now, and it still looks brand new. You were right. Of course you were.