Patrick Swayze

Has anyone seen Patrick Swazye's interview with Barbara Walters? For those of you that don't know, my mom at 56 (same age as Patrick) had the same pancreatic cancer. Just sitting here and watching him talk, looking at the massive weight loss and his struggles in sometimes talking...it is like a super flash-back to the last few months of my mom's life.

She came to visit us in Hawaii right after J. was born. This was a tremendous sacrifice for her to do. She was constantly vomiting and had constant strong abdominal pain and never slept. She had to keep moving to keep her body in less pain. But in July she got on a plane for SIX hours and she flew across the ocean to see me and her first grandson. That sitting down ride was excruciating for her. She looked just like Patrick looks now...very thin and doing downhill. I was so worried abut her during that visit.

She went back home and a few months more of doctors not being able to determine what was wrong, they took out her diseased gallbladder. Still nothing better. Then she got a bowel obstruction in late February. When they went in for the surgery, they found pancreatic cancer and that it had spread everywhere. I got a call at lunch time in Hawaii and my dad told me and I just sat and screamed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My best friend, my only family was dying. I was going to lose my mother at the age of 26.

We loaded all four kids and us on a plane and got there as soon as we could. I rarely left my mom's bedside and she tried to remain upbeat and told me she was not afraid. I told her I couldn't make it without her. She was my everything. I remember one night after they released her to go home on hospice, she went to her older sister's house and I asked my aunt if I could spend the night. Of course they let me. In the middle of the night my mom was struggling and I ran over to her and she asked me why I was still here. I told her because I could not NOT be there. She just gave me a look that meant she really didn't want me to see this but she understood why I WAS there.

A few days later, she asked me to help her plan her funeral. It was the most horrendous experience I have ever had to do. She told me who she wanted to talk, who was to say the prayer and then she asked me if I would give a talk too. She told me if it would be too hard that I didn't have to....but I just had to. I just had to. She told me the suit she wanted to be buried in and where I could find it. She also left explicit instructions on where her BYU pompoms where and that they were to go in the coffin with her.

A day or two before she died, I sat next to her talking to her and rubbing her hair. I was crying and crying and telling her to take me to. She had not been speaking much, but she looked at me with her motherly eyes and said "It'll be ok Sunshine." That is what she has called me ever since I was born. That was really the only thing she said to me again.

My world crashed, all in one incident. I pulled back from everyone and I became numb for a good year or so. That one thing catapulted my life to where it is now. I decided that she died at 56 and never got to do anything she ever wanted to. She was not happy when she died. I wanted to be happy. I wanted to LIVE. I decided to go back to school, I made choices that altered my marriage (luckily for the better) and I am being proactive now. I have had nearly 5 years of uncontrollable ME and it's finally coming back into place. It has been a long, HARD road to find ME again. I have two boys she's never met, never held. I have accomplishments she will never see. I miss her more than anything in the world.

I know she wouldn't have agreed with my marriage choices, but I still believe she would accept R. because he is the innocent victim in this. I think she would be over-joyed with me graduating from school, and I think she would be proud of me for trying to make things right. Right with the people I have hurt and right with myself. To those that will not forgive me, that is their choice. The only two people that have to be ok with all of this is me and M. And I'm so glad M. is there for R. I cannot express my appreciation to that man for being something he doesn't have to be. R. loves him so much and thinks he's just his daddy. I rue the day I have to explain that his biological father was abusive and wanted nothing to do with him...in fact, his whole family wanted nothing to do with him. :(

I really wish I didn't watch that Patrick Swazye interview. It's so personal to me.