Choose Hope

Where do I begin?????
Perhaps, the end--
--a cold March Day...
---the last day of winter...
--the day I buried my 23 1/2 year old child....
--the day I insisted on doing the eulogy...
I had brought him into this world...my voice would be the one he would hear.

Or should I start at the beginning--
--a rainy September 2005 morning
---in the recovery room after his colonoscopy...
--after a year of treating what Doctors said was colitis...
---it turned out to be a mother's nightmare... "CANCER"

Barely able to breath ...
I had to make the call to
his father,
his siblings,
his grandparents...
I had to be the one who said Cancer...colonrectal cancer.
Need I say more...

A treatable cancer they say...
Perhaps if young adults were given routine colonscopy they would have caught it earlier...
all the "maybes" and "what ifs" ...

For Andrew it was stage 4
--removal of the tumor
--radiation
--chemo and more chemo
--pain medication ad more pain medication
--Eventual colostomy

They said MY SON was to be the first in the world..yes the world ..to get a vaccine for this type of cancer.
--He seizured a few days before they were going to attempt this treatment.
--I never saw him coherent again.

6 days later, with his body shutting down-
I lay down beside him...
held my child in my arms and whispered in his  ear it was OK to let go...

I think I wanted to die when my child died.
I was no longer his mother in the physical sense.
I was no longer able to be a mother to my two surviving children
I was no longer able to be the wife to a husband I literally half way went around the world to meet and finally marry.
On the outside I was me...
On the inside I was barely recognizable...even to me

So here it is 2010
I am still breathing.
I am fighting the battle my son would want me to fight.
My fight is for all the other mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers....
My fight is for all the Grandparents and friends.
If we can put a man on the moon we can cure cancer.

I still have hope that one day all cancer can be irradicated or at the very least controlled.

I miss my baby...but I will not let him die in vain!!!

Andrew's Mother...FOREVER!!