Wigs and Woes

Grief is hard for most people, sometimes you start to grieve before you’ve lost someone or something.

I feel like I’ve been in the stages of grief for the entire cancer journey with Matt. Preparing for the worst. Swallowing the small losses that would theoretically add up to an eventual total loss. I know he has been too, and though I don’t speak for him, I know he must be grieving the loss of everything he’s had to sacrifice and what’s to come.

We went to the oncologist on Monday, and planned of asking for a re-challenge with FolFox, the first chemotherapy Matt was treated with. The radiation has possible only treated the liver and we know there’s other cancer sites. 

Matts been having headaches, occasional fevers, trouble sleeping, constant discomfort and pain. We relayed this to his oncologist who said we have to get Matt in for a head MRI, to rule out brain metastasis. We got it scheduled for Friday morning. This morning. And prepared for the worst, but we’re hopeful that for once Matt isn’t a statistical anomaly.

So yesterday, you would have assumed I’d be a prepared to handle a loss. But, the truth is you’re never ready. Age isn’t a factor. I hear people say “ they were old and lived a long life”, I’ve said it myself. But, that just means that a person was here longer to be even more of a staple in someone’s life, someone had years to become attached and fall dependent on that person. So while at least that person may have accomplished all they wanted and lived a fulfilling life, it doesn’t make it any easier to say goodbye. 

With someone like Matt, we all say he’s so young, and the reality is that seems harder because his children deserve to know him. He deserves to watch them grow. He has a built a life that he deserves to see develop and flourish. He should be able to fulfill all his goals or least be given time to try. So we fight for the time, he suffers and endures all kinds of tortures to make extra days.

There is no easy way out with grief. A loss is profound no matter the timing. The loss of someone you cherished will leave a gap no matter how long you have; or don’t have. 

So I will never actually be prepared to lose Matt, just like I wouldn’t have been able to prepare to lose my mother’s mom, as she fought tooth and nail out of the ICU a few months back. My cousin's couldn’t have prepared to lose both of their beloved grandmother’s within a month. But, I was not even considering I’d lose my Dad’s mother any time soon.

I sat last night listening to voicemails she had left me, thinking back on how much time I really spent with her. My grandmother would roll up to St. Madeleine Sophie’s in her vintage car, hair in what I always considered a beehive, and big ol’ sunglasses. She hated to drive, literally despised it. So if and  when she pulled up you knew I was sick or really in need of her. 

On normal days I got on and off the bus at her house. When  I got off she always had a snack bag ready. I got three cookies, a cheese stick, and some fruit snacks. After I finished my baggie of goods, I could run upstairs to go in the refrigerator drawer and pick out three chocolates.

She let me take five chocolates. We’d pretend she didn’t see. 

On snow days, the occasional sick day my mom didn’t stay home, or a random school closure that wasn’t a holiday I found myself at Grandma’s. I would be extra quiet because grandma would sleep in until 9:00am and Poppy would’ve left for work. Those days she would make me SpaghettiO’s with franks or meatballs, or sometimes soup. I’d dig to the bottom because she insisted there’s be a surprise. It was always a character printed at the bottom of the bowl.  I remember always telling her it wasn’t a surprise and she’d laugh and tell me it worked every time. 

She was ball buster, first teasing the men in the family who dared love the Red Sox and even more so teasing her great grandchildren for hugs and kisses. 

I did her hair for over a year, every Sunday I showed up with her coffee and my blow dryer. Every Sunday we would catch up and she would drive me crazy, grandma was the only woman I knew who wanted her hair done, then covered it with a wig. I had those crazy Sundays until Matt was diagnosed.

The night Matt was diagnosed, my grandparents stalked me on a cellphone app and texted me the minute they saw I pulled into my driveway. Grandma cried and told me she would do anything to help, they were so sorry, she was so sorry. I called them the next few nights while I couldn’t sleep. Grandma was a night owl. And no matter how hard of time she gave me, she was behind me.

She would’ve told me the at Matt’s brain scan wouldn’t show anything cancer related, because even before cancer he was sick enough in the head to love the Red Sox. The. Once I was laughing, she would’ve told me she’s be praying and she loved us all. 

Honestly, I never imagined I’d be doing to rest of this cancer rollercoaster without every family member.

Especially, not Bobcia— the ball buster we lovingly called “Bob”