It's Okay if You Resent Me, Too

As the birds chirp outside my window, you remind me of the canary in the mines. It was too late to save you by the time your silence was recognized, but you still did your part as a warning. As a beacon of hope and a pit of despair. There was no mask until that day, a smile where a frown seemed permanently etched.

On that day, emotions flooded through the family like the raging tides before a hurricane makes landfall. They’d pulled back, anticipation lasting weeks, months, years… Only to charge at the levy I’d carefully placed. Placed and reinforced with all the emotional maturity that I had, which at fifteen, was likely more than it should have been. You never asked and I never told you, but I’d been gearing up for a battle I knew I’d never be prepared for.

On that day, you told me three words that would change the course of my life.

“I have cancer.”

On that day, my sister cried. On that day, Dad put on a brave face for you, holding your hand as the news was broken. As our hearts were broken and our hopes for a normal life were crushed. And me? I went into the backyard and rammed a soccer ball at the brick wall out of fury. There was a fire in my chest that burned until it became a hole, a constant reminder of all that was to come and all that was to leave. It stuck with me day after day and night after night, this unbridled rage that I wasn’t ready to face. But it wasn’t at the world, like everyone might have thought. Not entirely at least.

On that day, you didn’t have to tell me. I already knew.

I never knew how to tell you, Mom. I never knew how to explain it. Even now, sitting at my desk and puzzling in the middle of the night, I can’t quite put it into something coherent—it’s too abstract to, really. How do you tell somehow diagnosed with terminal cancer that you knew it before they did? How, when you’re not a doctor, and the doctors didn’t believe you to begin with, could I possibly tell you, “Yeah. I already knew you had cancer.”

I’ve always been perceptive. Always knew how people felt from the twitch of an eyebrow or the nuance of someone’s voice. But how could I possibly know something like that? It was a gut feeling. A pit, a trench, a gorge that widened every time you came home from a test with the same result: Inconclusive. A gorge that deepened every time you were told it was just your weight. You may have been the perfect storm, but I was a Doppler radar. I could have been the emergency alert, the storm chaser, the tornado siren. I could have been the canary. But who would believe a fifteen-year-old girl?

In the end, I was right. I was right for likely several years. And I hated myself for it.

On that day, as I slammed the ball at the wall for the umpteenth time, I cursed myself out. Was I mad at the world? Yes. Was I mad at the doctors? Absolutely. Was I mad at you—an unfair take from a selfish daughter—yeah. Maybe I was. I didn’t want you to go. I didn’t want you to leave me in this world alone, to fend for myself without a mother to be the light guiding me through the dark. But I was mad at myself more. Furious for not saying anything and furious for being right. It wasn’t a rational thought, and it wasn’t a helpful one, but it was a perpetual feeling that never left me alone—a predator that I couldn’t shake off.

It stalked me from afar at first. I did my best to act normal. I went to school. I went to soccer. I went to see my boyfriend and I hung out with my friends. I let the fire brand me from the inside out as I plastered on a fake smile and pretended that everything was fine. That I was fine. That you were fine. Even though it was far from the truth.

My little sister, bless her heart, spent every minute with you that she could. She kept you company while Dad took me to soccer practice. She played games with you and talked to you and watched NCIS for the thousandth time all while I feigned being busy. But the truth was that I couldn’t face you.

I’m sorry.

I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to act. You were dying. Right in front of my eyes. Deteriorating, liver failing, sense of self slipping away… How was I supposed to act in front of this woman with my mother’s face who was no longer my mother? You had her eyes, though they didn’t have the same lively shine in them anymore. You had her laugh, but it was hollow. You had her hugs and kisses, the ones you always gave me when you came home from work… But you would no longer come home from work. In fact, I often spent time wondering when you would no longer come home at all.

I took those hugs and kisses before bed, half turned away from you because I couldn’t look you in the eyes. Not without screaming, or cussing, or crying. The guilt consumed me every night as I laid in bed, but of course I never told you that either. There are so many things I never told you.

If I could have just one more conversation… I wonder if I could face you now.

As the next summer neared and I finished school for the year, everyone avoided the question that plagued us. How long is left? How much longer will she suffer?

As rain pummelled the windshield on the way to work, Dad told me we had about six months—but I knew better. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was lying, even if he didn’t know it yet. And as he screamed down the stairs the next day and told me to call an ambulance, my heart dropped like the dish I was washing into the soapy water, splashing like the bile into my throat. That was it. I had my answer. You would not be coming home.

Of course, I didn’t tell you that either. I didn’t tell my sister that. I didn’t tell my dad that. But I didn’t call the ambulance either. I had frozen in my tracks, listening to the cacophony of voices from above my head, mostly drowned out by your anguished screams. I don’t know who ended up calling the ambulance. All I know is that it wasn’t me.

Five days.

Five days you sat in that hospital bed, slowly losing touch with reality. Four days I spent in the hospital waiting room with the rest of our family, reminiscing and waiting for the inevitable. Visiting you every chance that we got, which wasn’t many. The first day, you reassured me that you’d be fine. I didn’t tell you that you wouldn’t be… but I’m sure that you knew that already.

The next day, you recognized me, but it took you some time to place my sister. At first, I wondered if you had forgotten her. Sometimes I still wonder if you did. I didn’t tell you that, either.

The next day, you smacked your dry lips and gazed at me with those bugged out eyes, mistaking me for a waitress on some beach in Florida. You asked me for a drink. I will never, ever, forget the sight of you on that day. It is the only thing that I can clearly picture in my mind, and for someone with Aphantasia, that’s a feat in and of itself. I laughed and played along with your drug induced fantasy. At least you were somewhere happy.

Not long after that, you asked me where your mom and dad were. Your mom teared up as she listened, her hand gripping yours. Your brother left the room in tears. I’d never seen him cry before. I hope I never do again. In response, I told you that they would be there soon. I didn’t have the heart to tell you that your father had passed away in October. I often wonder if it was better that way—I don’t think he could’ve borne losing his only daughter.

Mom, there’s a lot that I didn’t tell you. And though I may be a woman now, not that sixteen-year-old girl that you left behind, I still feel guilty about it. About not telling you what I somehow knew. About not being there for you when you needed me the most. I’m sorry.

I wish I could’ve been like everybody else.

But while everybody else wondered each day if that day was the day, I shrugged it off. “Nope. Not today,” I would mumble, much to the bewilderment of everyone around me. Until Tuesday.

I knew it would be Tuesday.

All day, this grief lingered in me, clenching my heart as I clenched my fists. I hugged you and told you I loved you for the last time. For the last time while you could hear me, that is. I was hesitant to leave, wanting to stay until the last possible second. Because I knew that before the night was over, there would be that last possible second. Even when everyone else got ready for bed, I hesitated, putting it off and putting it off until it neared midnight.

Finally, I gave in, changing into pyjamas and sliding onto the bottom bunk of our bed. And then the phone rang. It was 11:45.

The tears streamed down my face before I’d even received the news. I didn’t need to pick up the phone to know what happened. Didn’t need to hear my dad’s choked voice or the strangled cries from the other people in the house. You were gone. My mom was gone. Just like I knew you would be.

I don’t remember the car ride to the hospital, though I know your other brother drove us there in the dead of night. I don’t remember what anyone else said along the way. But what I do remember is the nausea and the dread that seeped through my veins, poisoning me with grief and heartache. I remember the tears that slipped down my face as I hugged your still warm body. It was almost as if you were still breathing, but I knew that wasn’t true. It was only my toxic hopes that you were still there with me.

It was a cruel joke—that warm body of yours. You were only a fleeting idea at that point, slipping away through my fingers as I clutched your arms with all my might. I pecked your cheek and forehead and said my goodbyes. My real final “I love you,” to you in person. I still tell you all the time, hoping that wherever you are you can hear me. But I will never again receive a response. Never will you hug me again. Never will the words, “I love you, too,” leave your lips. Only in my dreams.

As I forced myself out of that room, I had to brace myself on a chair to keep from collapsing. The guilt that had branded me reared its ugly head and the hole that burned in my chest finally extinguished, leaving a gaping nothingness behind. It’s still there, lingering as the ghost of your voice does. Even five years later.

But I never told you that, either.

After all, how could I? You’re gone. And I resent you for it. I resent you for leaving me behind, feeling like I needed to parent my little sister. Feeling like I had to fight through this life alone, because a girl needs her mom. Feeling like I would forever be missing a part of me. And I was right. I am missing a part of me. And though I love you with my whole heart—with every single living fibre of my being—I resent you for it. But that’s okay.

I resent myself, too.