"To Planet Earth and Back"

"It's a UFO!"

My mother's face would awash with an inaccessibly distant, childlike glow when she made these revelations. She would only be pointing to an airplane or shooting star, but I would never risk losing the mysticism on her face by telling her that. Those moments watching her observe the stars were the most fond to me, the most likely to cause choked tears to slide down my face upon recollection. I can't articulate what that look meant to me without breaking down into a sobbing mess, my computer screen turning into a spaghettio-soup of jumbled letters, like the kind she used to feed me when we were flat broke. Anyone who was lucky enough to see her expression while looking at the stars knows what I'm talking about - the strong woman that's allowed herself to be vulnerable only to the stars. Her ability to (or perhaps her need to) get so excited over unknowable things in the face of her own 'unknown'.

Cancer. The terminal kind. Metastasized from her breast to her back and brain. This was her unknown, and the question mark at the end of the sentence was barreling towards her faster than we could have predicted. And in this story, everything is 'we', because my mom and I were the fierce duo: never one without the other.

My mother, also known as mom, maman, muh-ma, mouther (if I was feeling particularly sassy) was my best friend. We would rap along to 'Forever Young' by Jay-Z in unison, over-emphasizing words like the 'video' in 'living life like a video'. One of rituals was sitting glued to the TV watching reruns of Desperate Housewives with Haagen-Dazs Pralines and Cream. I didn't find out until many years later that the pint came with a top layer of caramel. For years, every time we ate that flavor, she would systematically comb the top layer of caramel off before bringing the pint over to share. The first time I bought a pint with my own money and surprised her with it, I thought the layer was a manufacturing defect and ran to show her, announcing our luck. She played along, and it still took years to figure it out. I still laugh every time I open a pint of that ice cream.

She was the type of mom I could talk to about the boys I crushed on, and she honored the confessions by empathizing with the awkwardness of being a teenager. On the first of these occasions she gave me the 'safe sex' conversation in the coolest, most comforting way a mom has ever given the 'safe sex' chat. She was my safe space, my cheerleader, my kick in the pants when I needed one, but most of all, I don't care how cliché, she was home.

For the first 7 years of my life, I got to experience a great childhood. I didn't find out until much later the energy my mom exerted to keep me from blissfully unaware of the problems at home. Within 2 years, my dad got in an accident, became addicted to opiates, cheated on my mom, and went to rehab (unsuccessfully) which led to their eventual divorce. These events weren't explained to me as boldly as my typing suggests, rather, the truth was left in little crumbs my mom dropped slowly, as I became more ready to hear them.

Only months after the divorce, my mom was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. She went through surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation in quick succession, and the impact caused her to drop to just 85 pounds - less than I weighed as a 12 year old. Then, during her first period of remission, she became a victim of sexual assault. She developed alcoholism, and fell into a debilitating depression. My adult lens can see the invisible weight she carried, but being a child at the time she was my superhero, and superhero's don't give up. She later confided in me, telling me I was the only reason she kept going, because she knew that I idolized her, and her love for me outweighed everything.

My mom was a warrior. A true survivor. And she made sure to shield me from whatever horrors we faced. When we read that story about a mom who uses superhuman strength to save her child from under a car, my mom was unfazed. That type of strength was not foreign to her. "I would lift a train for you!" was her response, as if it was obvious there was strength much greater than car-lifting. For example, one morning my dad was supposed to pick me up so she could rest alone after her incredibly painful second round of chemo. He never showed up, never called, and I got really scared as the hours passed by. By the late afternoon, she announced we didn't need him, and took us with what little savings she had on a weekend trip to Niagara Falls to keep my spirits high, despite the immense pain she was carrying from her treatment. The only time I caught a small break in her armor was when I woke up that first night in the hotel room to her quietly crying in the bathroom. When she opened the door, I pretended to be asleep, and she stopped herself from crying by crawling into my bed and wrapping her arms around me. We woke up still in that position.

My mom and I had a saying, "I love you to planet Earth and back". We especially loved saying it because it didn't make sense to anyone. Only we knew that we had the type of love that took you other places, and instead of many families saying 'love you to the moon and back', we were already elsewhere, only stopping back at planet Earth for bits of reality here and there. When 'I love you to planet Earth and back' became too long, we started saying, simply, 'Brick'. 'Brick' was code for 'I love you to much to even bother with a sentence, I need to express how much I care for you in one word only, and this ridiculous inanimate object is the perfect filler for how I feel right now'. We especially loved announcing, 'Brick!' at a restaurant, or grocery shopping, or walking home; places that made no sense and that caused other people to take a long look, ending with us erupting in laughter. 'Brick' became especially helpful when my mom was losing her mind near the end, when strings of sentences became too much for the cancer infecting each part of her brain, sparing only the area where love for your daughter lives.

My mom taught me many things, as mothers do, but its the sticking of these lessons that surprises me, how ingrained they are in my moral compass, my way of talking. I think my mind hungrily fed on each lesson with the intention of constructing a loose version of who she was deep inside me, so that even when she's gone, it doesn't ever really feel like she's gone. It worked. Even now, I'll find myself answering a question with the same passionate conviction she did, shaping the words in the same manner, that I'll stop and wonder who said that sentence, was it really me, or was it her ghost I was channeling through me. She taught me to never love someone else more than you love yourself, and I picture her acting out the Sex and the City reference after explaining it: 'I love you Richard, but I love me more' with the same overdramatic gusto we used when rapping Jay Z's lyrics. She taught me to never rely on a man, a mistake she doesn't want our line of women to repeat, and I can successfully say that so far, I haven't, I just wish I could tell her that. She taught me to always believe in myself. She never said those words exactly, it would be far to cliché to be by her bedside in her final moments, the last words she says being 'always believe in yourself'. No, my mothers lessons were often learned in hindsight. In fact, our last words came in the form of me being angry on the phone because she wanted to watch the 'real' housewives of some city together, and I wanted to hangout with my friends. I remember being surprised but not shaken enough to inquire when she said 'Okay honey, go have fun tonight. We can always she each other tomorrow.' Normally, she would have been upset she didn't get to consume every waking minute with me, but I think she somehow knew then, that she was passing, and she wanted me to remember her how she was, strong, fearless, 'Forever Young'.

When I think about how she taught me to believe in myself, it makes me break because I want to pretend I didn't learn that lesson so she can come back and teach me it again and again. She taught me this by believing in me undoubtedly, no matter how far out there, no matter how unattainable it may sound. I once told her I wanted to be an astronaut, and she said I will be. "You're the smartest person I've ever met, I can totally see you being the first woman, no, person to Mars". A couple years later, I wanted to be an actress. "Lets save our money and we will go down to L.A for a few months and I'll help you find every acting gig you can. All you need is to get discovered, once a casting director sees you and hears you they will see what I see." She often told me 'You can do ANYTHING'. Anything. Imagine that. Imagine someone believing in you that much. Anytime I came home defeated about a mark on a test, or a bad day with at school, she would act like its so inconsequential to my bigger plan, that I would still reach my dreams. She was so sure, as if that's what she saw spelled out when she looked up at the stars and 'UFO's at night, as if that's the reason she had the childlike wonder on her face, because she knew what I would be.

I'm still waiting to prove her right. I've been having bad days lately, and I try to implement that lesson she taught me, to only rely on yourself and to believe in yourself and sometimes I do... But sometimes I come home begging the universe to reverse the clocks, wishing THAT was the purpose she saw spelled out in the stars, that I would cure cancer and discover time travel so I could go back in time and be reunited with her again.

I miss her. I miss her so much. To anyone reading this who knows what this type of love feels like, go call your mothers. HUG them if you can. TELL them how you feel. If you are a mother, know you are so loved, no matter what the circumstance with you and your child are.

My mom wasn't perfect, in fact she made a lot of mistakes. Some of the lessons I learned from my mother were absorbed through watching her make them so I don't have to. She wasn't always healthy, there were some years were she didn't make the right decisions for me, or our family, but I do know for certain she loved me fiercely. She taught me what real, true love feels like.

Above all else, she taught me how to be optimistic in the face of horrible truths. She taught me how to fake a smile so you can believe its real, how to pick yourself up after a long day, a long decade, even. She taught me how to stay Forever Young in the face of an early death. It's funny that's the song we used sing together. The lyrics sum up her essence, the life lessons she taught me through osmosis, about brightness, happiness, and hope:

"Let's dance for a while

Heaven can wait we're only watching the skies

Hoping for the best but expecting the worst

Are you gonna drop the bomb or not?

Let us die young or let us live forever

We don't have the power, but we never say never

Sitting in a sandpit, life is a short trip

The music's for the sad man" …

…"Cause there is no tomorrow

Just some picture perfect day

To last a whole lifetime

And it never ends

'Cause all we have to do is hit rewind

So lets just stay in the moment

So when the director yells cut we'll be fine"

And, most painfully poetic:

"So if you love me baby this is how you let me know

Don't ever let me go

That's how you let me know, baby"