Put out the fire in your head

(written on Saturday June 21)

As mothers do, mom would often 'give a kiss to make it all better' as we bumped and bruised our ways through childhood. For whatever reason--perhaps the emotional comfort of a mother's affection--the pain would subside and we'd carry on with the random, hell-raising activity that led to pain in the first place. Most often, it wasn't the pain that was so startling but the surprise of one's own vulnerability-- life's little reminders of one's mortality. Through a kiss she'd say, "put out the fire in your head, sweetheart. It will be OK".

Now, every morning, every night and the moments in between, I kiss Mom on the forehead hoping that somehow the returned favor--a daughter's affection--would somehow "make it all better", at least for a moment. To help "put out the fire in her head". There is so much said in the human touch, a conversation where no words are needed. Between Mom and her children, the touch reads like an epic. So much is spoken, so much is communicated, so much is expressed that mere words can't properly convey--nor should they. It's in a touch, a held hand, a massaged leg, a hug, or a kiss that says "I am always here beside you, you are not alone". It is love without description, devotion without request.

Lately, she'll form a kiss on her lips and send an "air kiss" back. With eyes as brown and full as ever before and over a tired voice, she echoes my "I love yous" with a whispered, "I love you...too".

We're not alone in this form of affection. Mom's attending oncologist just so happened to 'attend' to Craig when he was admitted more than a month ago, and the surreal nature was neither lost on us nor her. Her spunky, sarcastic yet sincere demeanor automatically put her into 'advanced placement' in the Lawler camp. She became our new best friend when she, too, shared the power of human touch and gave a kiss on mom's forehead. Though mom may not actively participate, she always listens intently as the care team discusses plans with mom and the family. Ever in tune, the doctor notices when mom is upset or when we've covered sensitive information, and will reach out to hold her hand. Ever so gently, she'll purposefully lean over to give a kiss on Mom's forehead before whispering words of comfort.

This level of interaction and compassion has seemingly fallen into extinction between physician and patient (perhaps for good reason...ought not to breach sexual harassment/misconduct codes). Yet, each exchange between this doctor and mom showed that "she got it"--she got mom and she got what we were going through as a family. Maybe it's the improbable circumstances that we face that makes the interaction more "real"; she's helped two family members, both young, both battling stage IV cancer. One is nearing the end of that process, the other still wading through. She knows we have no misperceptions of what a lumbar drain might do, what the chemo might accomplish, or, for Craig, what "tumor fever" really means. We shoot straight from the hip much like her and perhaps that's why we relate. Or maybe it's that she takes the time to see Mom and Craig as they are, and as they'd want to be.

At least we know through our conversations with mom that she is not frightened, she's at peace, there are no fires left in her head...

~E