It was only about 50 years ago that man would die off from the most simple and now common diseases and ailments. With the arrival of the technology age, man had made huge strides in modern medicine and eliminated the risks of many diseases. Man is just steps away from immortality. But until then everyone is vulnerable, even the happiest and perfect of families can be torn apart in ways that medicine and science can’t mend.
A woman will still weeps a year after her husband dies in a drunk driving accident on his way home from the grocery store to get her ice cream. Her soul and her heart find what little peace they can when she is around her beautiful daughter. Together they cope with the loss of a husband, father, and a friend the best they can. The daughter goes to class and loses herself in the dramas of high school and graduation just one year away. Mom, broken hearted, stays active and borderline over-protective with the daughter’s life ensuring no harm or pain comes to her.
With such pain still close to the surface mom and daughter will fight. Above even the love of a spouse, a mother’s love for a child and the primal nature to keep them safe can be over-powering. Not meaning to smother her daughter, the mom will overreact to the simple things. By wanting to be closer to the only remaining family she has, mom will ultimately push them apart. Ironically the only way for the two to reconnect and care for each other as they did before the accident is when mom is given 2 months to live when she gets diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Chemotherapy, a relatively new product of Modem Medicine has been said to extend lives six months and sometimes more.
Two months to live, seven months to daughter’s graduation, and four extended months from chemo still leave mom a month short. Faced with her own mortality she reflects on the life she had. Everything was great with only two regrets: asking her husband to go get ice cream and losing touch with her daughter. Not dead yet, she decides there might still be time to fix her relationship with her daughter. For the first few months the two become close as the daughter is needed to assist mom to her doctor’s appointments for chemo; and while the two sit there for the two hour treatment, they begin talking again. By the end of the third month mom is still technically alive, but only in the shell of a person she once was. Chemo is a brutal treatment that kept her alive but she was miserable and the daughter could see it.
Pleading with her daughter, she begs to get off the chemo.
“I DON’T FEEL ALIVE ANYMORE AND I CAN BARELY REMEMBER YOUR FATHER,” she yelled with a pain and strained voice.
Tears feel her eyes as she continues in a tired whisper:
“Let me go, I want to feel again…” she pauses, “I don’t want to forget your father.”
Against the doctor’s recommendation and the acceptance that mom will not see her graduate the daughter does not take mom back for a single treatment. Slowly, color returns to mom’s face, strength to the limbs, and her head began filling with the long forgotten memories of her husband. Not expected to make it even a few days, mom beat the odds and lived on; each day getting stronger and stronger. What was once acceptance that she would not see her daughter graduate soon became a reality that she would.
The medical world would argue that it was the 3 months of chemo that slowed the growth of the cancer that would eventually extend her life. Man hides behind the delusions of science and that it will one day birth immortality. The reality of it is that, yes medicine does help extend life but it will never give immorality.
Medicine didn’t even extend this woman’s life; a few words written on a piece of paper did. Come the day of graduation, the daughter walked proud that she had competed a huge chapter in her life and as she grasps the diploma in her hand, she catches sight of her mother still alive and tears fill her eyes. After the ceremony the two walk to the car and are interrupted by a car of celebrating graduates. Her friends tell her about a party and insist she goes. Hesitant at first, she resists wanting to make sure mom gets home safe. But mom is so happy and proud of her daughter. Mom ensured her daughter that she was feeling fine and could make it home. Mom pushes her towards the car of new graduates and tells her to have fun. The two hug each other and she mouths a “thank you” to mom and jumps in the car.
As mom drives home she thinks about how she only had 2 months to live and that it was a miracle to see her daughter graduate. Not paying attention to the road she has to suddenly swerve to avoid a car accident. Shaken about the near accident she pulls off into a parking lot to catch her breath. What mom didn’t know was at that exact moment several miles away there would be a car filled with kids running a red light as a large semi clears the intersection.
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