I blogged last year (I think!) that, right after my mother in law was diagnosed with cancer last December, her last living sibling fell, developed complications and died a week later - the day before my mother in law's birthday.
Yesterday, her son, "J" came to visit my mother in law, my spouse, and me.
J is a retired fireman, and had been caring for his late mother for years. Now (it's sad to say, but I think you all know what I mean) that she's gone, he's free. He has been absent from a lot of family gatherings and we mainly saw him at funerals. Now, we are making plans to have him come up sometime this summer.
He's very friendly, and we talked about a lot of things. Over cheesecake, we laughed and joked, all of us, about cell phones and Facebook, about our children, about Weight Watchers (he's on it, I'm on it, my spouse is "sort of" on it), and about my mother in law's cancer.
Why would you laugh about cancer? Because a person with cancer is just that, a person, the same person as she was the day before her diagnosis. Cancer doesn't make her a saint, or someone who needs to be treated like a special sick person. Everyone needs to laugh. Laughter is truly the "best medicine".
She spoke about her oncologist, who has been so supportive. He joked with her before she was put under for the first of her two surgeries. He treated her like a human being, not a medical case.
She spoke about wanting some comfort foods. Over this weekend, we had made a couple of them for her and stocked her fridge In the coming weeks I'll blog about the two soups we made for her. One was an Italian specialty. The other - well, it wasn't. And that really made me laugh.
And we spoke about the cheesecake, which was made New York City style-maybe, like this.
(And yes, J, my spouse, and I, all had small pieces.)
At the end of the visit, my mother in law was so happy that J had stopped by.
We hopefully won't be seeing my mother in law again until February. We live 150 miles away, and will definitely keep in touch by phone. However, I hope you don't mind if I continue to blog about her and our ongoing experiences as long distance caregivers for her and her developmentally disabled son, from time to time.
Isn't it wonderful what some good food and some good company can do?
Great post. I believe that laughter can get you through anything. My husband was in a serious accident years ago where he lost half of his left hand. Some would say, "why are you laughing" about this? Because we look for humor in every situation. Hey the finger food jokes were the best. lol
ReplyDeleteYes, good food and good company is magical. I wish the best for your mother in law and the battle that she's fighting. She's very lucky to have all of you, who treat her like you always have, and allow her to talk, and even laugh, about her frightening experiences.
ReplyDeleteIt's almost magical the way getting together with friends and relatives makes you laugh. The decoration on that cheesecake would cheer anybody's spirits. You're so right about a person with a terminal condition being the same person as before they were diagnosed. We should all bear that in mind.
ReplyDeleteVery refreshing attitude and comment. You're right. People are people. With or without cancer, or autism, or ______. And humor is a very healing and helpful things (or at least I feel it is!)
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