While the "C' word has danced at the edge of my life,
whirling away a friend's leg at 19 and anther's life after years of fighting,
it isn't until I am driving through the Wisconsin countryside
that the fear of it wraps around my heart
and I grip the wheel hurtling around green shadowed corners of curved road.
Cancer.
My mother.

It is apparently caught early, and a routine treatment.
But as I have already learned, Cancer's path never seems consistent
and soon we learn it is in the lymphs
and a much longer, aggressive treatment is necessary.

I am grateful I am there to hold her hand at the first consultation,
feeling the light, airy weight of it,
the tissue paper-thin skin covering the bones,
exactly as mine will be someday.
 ---
Walking across a festival ground weeks later
thousands of miles from home,
alone in a sea of revelers,
she tells me "Virginia is For Lovers"
and recounts a story of her early days (before children),
working at the wood stove shop,
and her young co-worker who went to Virginia for her honeymoon.
Mom would drive to visit her in Wausau on the weekends after she moved away,
a weekend girlfriend visit.
She laughs recounting the details from long ago,
and it breaks my heart as I realize this is what I could miss the most:
her voice on the other end of the phone, keeping me company,
with small facts that are of no real importance,
other than that she keeps them,
and shares them with me when I am alone.
---
Once I took my parents on a small roadtrip in Colorado,
visiting my favorite mountain towns,
eating decadent food and taking pictures of peaks and waterfalls.
I asked them to tell me the stories of their lives.
My father remembers bb guns and getting in trouble,
his dad's work ethic and Friday night 6 pack.

My mother laughs a lot during her telling,
amused at her own amusement.
She draws a map on the table with her fingers
of where the candy shop was from her house
on the walk to the Catholic school.
Some blocks down, some blocks over.
 ---
 My boyfriend and I were traveling somewhere,
as we do most days these days,
and talking about non-attachment.
"It's easier to be a monk," he said.
"The more you love, the more you stand to lose."

Before we hit the road, my therapist gave me an assignment:
Ask him to build a place for an altar in the truck
and place a photo of your mother on it
amongst your other sacred things.
Have him hold you and sit in front of it each day you are in that vast world

so far from everything else
and send her light.

I will take this challenge of love, of potential loss.