Three weeks later, her jeans hung loose on her hips and she looked like someone the wind could easily move.
I took her to the hospital where the oncologist delivered the brutal news that she had advanced cancer that was already inoperable.
I sat in the parking garage for twenty minutes with both hands on the steering wheel because I could not believe life was coming for my second parent so soon.
My brother wanted to come back to help, but he had a mortgage and teenagers in school, so we worked through our options like heartbroken children doing math.
In the end, there was no real choice because I was the person who could stay and care for her.
That night, I told Russell that I wanted to move into my mother’s house for a while to be her primary caregiver.
Russell looked at me as if I had announced I was adopting a tiger and asked why he should be dragged into another year of my family’s problems.
“She is very sick, Russell, and she simply cannot be left alone right now,” I explained while trying to keep my voice steady.
Russell laughed and asked who exactly was going to cook and do the laundry for him if I was not there to handle those tasks.