Finality and Hope

March 12th
I wept today. Sobbed. Just hours ago. Just hours ago I said goodbye to my Italian Mama, Teresa.

I have not been to many funerals. My earliest and first was my great grandmother's, Adeline, when I was 9. I still remember the pain I felt in that room as a young kid. I remember my chest hurting while I watched all the hurt around me. I still remember some of the words I recited from the poem my parents wrote for her. I was proud to be given that responsibility. But it still hurt. That feeling stuck w me and from that point forward I dreaded all wakes and funerals. I do not do well. And since then if an acquaintenance passed away I simply sent a card to share my condolescences. It was just something I couldn't handle. I did not attend another funeral until over 20 years later. I know most people cannot say that. I know how lucky I was.

Nothing prepared me for the pain I would feel at the funerals of my filipino cousins Jimmy and Jacob in 2007. Their sudden and tragic deaths by drowning were unspeakable. Their anniversary is approaching and my family's pain deepens as the countdown hits, each year they trigger their pain at the marking of Jacob's March bday. Those novenas and buriels were absolutely heartwrenching. I had NEVER seen so much ache in one room, one grassy space afront coffins. No parent should have to bury their child before their own death. No one!

Teresa's service brought back so many of those aches and pains. I have a had a connection with this lovely lady since I was 8. Maria was my first friend in the new neighborhood. Her parents the first to welcome me into their home. Feed me AMAZING Italian food and wine. Their home was always filled with such a sense of togetherness. So comforting. So caring. I could go on and on with the memories but I wont. All I know is seeing those 3 children, now adults, and her husband was not easy. And yet as much as I dreaded seeing their pain , all I wanted to do all week leading up to this day was hold them, hug them.

When I arrived at the church I realized they would be walking in as a family with her body. Oh my. As soon as I saw them I lost it. Every one of their faces was purely empty. They were drained of life themselves. Numb. Their pain was everywhere. So what if Teresa was not hurting anymore! Everyone in that room was! How is this okay? How is this the way life is? Birth and death? I question it all. Her family has every right to be angry. I filled with so many fears of my own. The anger. Fears. More unknowns. The day I myself will be following my own parents caskets. I just can't.

It felt like a bad dream really. For years that family has suffered with one cancer diagnosis after another, amongst more than one of them. The type of family you want to yell at God FOR. I have prayed enough is enough already many times. Leave them alone! But no answers.

And here they were weeks ago coaching Charito and I through their chapters of lung cancer. And now it was over. So quickly. So unfair. When did it come to this? No trips to the zoo with Matteo. No opportunity to make his first communion outfit. No a lot of things. And those thoughts not only hurt to think of, the reality of it, but also my fear. My fear this would be our path with my own motherinlaw. Is cancer always this cruel to adults? Grandmothers? Even with hope, is this what happens to the elders? I only know the child like cruelties of cancer. I live it everyday. And we have had hope since the beginning and we face those cruelties with such force no one would want to challenge Charito and I. It is a fight they could not win. Us Carpers will win this one.

More cancer is what it was. And you bet I wept for my boy in that church. I told myself over and over again IT WILL NOT BE HIM. I WILL NOT PICK OUT A TINY PRETTY BOX TO PLACE MY BOY IN. NO. And that is what I said to my favorite girls and their brother and their father as I hugged them before the procession. Bc of course, with cancer on their brains, Grayson is who they asked about. It was the hug I wanted to give all week. And as much as I feared facing them, their painful eyes once I held onto them, I did not want to let go. We held each other so tight. I didn't care who was in line behind me to pay their condolescences. It was my friend, her sister, brother and father who I wanted to be there for. It was so hard. Their loss of faith so evident. And I don't blame them one bit. I am going through similar doubts myself. Not so sure they will get theirs back. They are a family that toiled with it for 10+yrs. Of course they are going to hate...alot. I would be the same.

But as we stood by Teresa's side in the mausoleum and said our final goodbyes I continued to pray. Pray their hurt will subside even just the tiniest in the upcoming weeks. I worry. I worry as soon as all of the out of towners head out...the quiet, the aloneness, the solace. It will hurt even more. It will become even more real. And it will feel like drowning. The what now questions will continue to trail them each morning. And even though I am not going through what they are going through somehow I played all this, piece by piece in my mind. I may not have loss my mother but I have shared a bit of their fears in the past few months. And that is scary. Too scary to see all this cancer amongst such a small group of people. So wrong.

My last goodbye to Teresa...was for Grayson. I KNOW (even though I did not visit her or call her often as I should of, guilt I will have the rest of my life) she cared, asked and prayed for Grayson often. A great woman with her loving heart would have done nothing less. The sickness they shared. The comparisons she most likely contemplated between her adult body and his tiny body...the somewhat similar treatments, procedures and regime. We were allowed to place a rose upon her casket. As I approached the bouquet my flabbered mess of a mushy body, mind and heart motioned me to grab the closest one to me, but in the middle of my reach my hand froze. My eyes widened, past the blurry tears and puffy lids, I saw a single remaining orange rose. Orange for leukemia. Orange for Grayson. I grabbed it. I held it tight. I kissed it as I waited my turn. I felt my tears fall upon it. And then I placed it on her. For her. For Grayson. A promise to her to no longer worry for him. He will be just fine, Teresa.

As I gave my last hugs, my last glances I held onto Charito tight. We walked toward the cars. I told him "That will not be Grayson." He said "I know." I said it louder. I repeated myself several times past tears. I told him I just had to say it aloud. I had to. God has to hear me. Hear my warning. YOU will not take him. Do you hear me? You will not.