Time

May, 2010 -
You just can't beat springtime in Minnesota - the snow is finally gone, the days are getting longer and the temperatures are mild and comfortable.

My sweetie was still feeling good from his recent chemo and radiation and he was spending a lot of time outside customizing his new motorcycle. He painted it flat black and installed his saddle bags he'd had on the Harley. He sold his Harley earlier in the spring because it was too hard for him to ride it anymore. It was a big heavy bike and the vibration from the motor caused him pain in his shoulder and chest. Although he'd regained some of the dexterity in his hand, his arm was still weak and he feared he might dump it while riding. I was against the idea of selling it - I had said to him that he'd regret it once springtime arrived and he was feeling better. And now spring was here, he was feeling better and the sound of motorcycles was in the air. He was itching to ride again.

The 'new' bike was a used Kawasaki. It was much lighter and easier for him to ride. His mother ponied up the dough for it. She bought him a lot of stuff in 2010 - more stuff than usual. T-shirts, hats, watches - if she thought he'd like it or she saw him looking at it, she'd buy it. It was as though she thought he wouldn't know she loved him if she wasn't showering him with gifts.

For my part, I was still avoiding her when and where I could. Her behavior had been completely over the top since January - really facepalm worthy stuff. One day, she gave him a ride to the cancer center because we were having car trouble. She arrived wearing a faux leather jacket with a faux leopard fur collar - and she was wearing a cancer headscarf with a wine bottle print all over it. For some reason she thought she looked like a biker - but why she was trying to look like a biker was and still is beyond me. We knew what it was as soon as we saw it, we had just spent every day for the last month or so at the cancer center and we had seen hundreds of them. She tried to say it was a bikers do-rag but it was quite obviously a cancer cap like the ones they had in the baskets at the cancer center, made by volunteers and available for free to cancer patients. It was ridiculous and embarrassing. He told her that it wasn't necessary to dress like a cancer patient to go to the cancer center, and it came off as a bit disrespectful to the actual cancer patients as well. Fortunately we never saw that hat again. I still have no idea what she was thinking.

He had a follow up scan in the middle of the month and the results were still good. It appeared that the tumors in his lung were continuing to shrink and we were ecstatic. The fear and anxiety I had been feeling was beginning to abate. The irises he planted in the yard were starting to flower and we were spending a lot of our time out in the sunshine enjoying the weather and watching the birds.

We had the occasional visit from his dad and his sister - both far more tolerable to me than his mom. His cousins dropped by too. They were all far more pragmatic and it only accentuated how extremely nutty his moms behavior had been. Deep down, I felt guilty for the vitriol I felt toward his mom - but I couldn't make myself feel sorry for her and I couldn't stop the bile from rising in my throat whenever I had to interact with her. Sure, she was losing her son, but so was his father. And his sister was losing her brother, and I was losing my spouse. The big difference though, was that she kept acting as if every breath was his last and was mourning as though he was already gone - and this was at a time when he was feeling good. The rest of us refused to begin mourning until he was actually gone. Or at least we were acting that way outwardly.