The World’s Strongest Woman, subjectively
A eulogy and ode to my late mother
It’s been just over a month since my mother passed. I knew right after we buried her that I wanted to write something for and in honor of her. I thought for almost everyday on what to write, preparing a structure of sorts. After all that time, I realized that structuring is quite impossible and I should just write from the heart, similar to when I eulogized for her that night in front of my family. No preparation, just flow.
For the last 22 years, she’s been battling a multitude of diseases. Her main battle was with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, more commonly known as Lupus. Compared to the average Lupus patient, I could confidently say she surpassed a lot of them. Always takes her medications, always listens to her doctor, and knows her physical limit.
She even became available when her fellow Lupus friends knew someone who was just diagnosed and sought someone to talk to. In her condition and fragility, she barely showed her frustration with her disease, one that even today has no immediate cure. She, of course, has her off days where she’s too tired, physically and/or mentally, to do anything besides lying on the bed doing nothing. Despite everything, she survived Lupus. It wasn’t that battle that she lost in the end.
Besides her Lupus, she has suffered from four strokes, multiple occasions of pneumonia, a heart condition called ventricular tachycardia, which stems from arrhythmia, causing her to have an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (a more advanced version of a pacemaker), and epilepsy that led to an early-onset Parkinson’s diagnosis. But again, none of these were the reason that she’s gone.
The battle that she lost was something that was discovered pretty recently compared to everything else. On Christmas Eve last year, it was found that my mother had a sizeable tumor on her lung, already metastasizing to her liver at that point. Throughout the next two months, it was also found that it had metastasized to her brain and possibly to her bones as well.
When my mother told me of the discovery of her tumor, I asked her whether or not she was stressed by it. She immediately, and rather too quickly in my opinion, said that she wasn’t. But I knew my mother well enough to know that she’s stressed and disturbed by her latest diagnosis. No one expected cancer in a Lupus patient. It was an occasion rare enough that her doctor was quite stunned by it. It was big enough of a surprise that I knew she wasn’t taking it that well. All the strength and resilience that she has built up over the past two decades seem to have crumbled quite instantly.
I don’t blame her for basically giving up at that point. Hearing that you have cancer after everything that you’ve been through has to be a very painful experience indeed, one that not a single person on Earth can understand fully, as I can only empathize to a certain degree. When she said that she’d given up, about two weeks before she passed, I had trouble processing it, but I know that if she’s accepted death, then I should too.
Ever since I understood the terminal nature of her Lupus, I have built up a feeling of readiness. To say it frankly and rather crudely, in my mind, I have been preparing for the day that I will discover my mother has passed, be it at home after I woke up, or when I’m not home, or when she’s at the hospital. I admit that the preparation was also torn down when I heard of my mother’s cancer, though not entirely. I knew I had to build 20 years of preparation back in a matter of weeks.
It wasn’t until a week before she finally passed that I knew in my heart that I was ready for her to go at any time. After a hospital visit gone somewhat awry, mom was brought to the ER. There, she mentioned that she was ready for her last rites, her final communion. A pastor from our church was called, along with some of our church friends, and the communion took place. After the communion was done, she wished to go home, and none of the doctors stopped her. After we got home, I found myself completely ready for the inevitable. I even had a feeling that she wouldn’t make it to my birthday. A week later, on the 24th of February, two months to the date after the tumor in her lung was found, she passed on her bed in the early hours of the morning, sometime around dawn.
My mother deserves the title of World’s Strongest Woman. Throughout her battles with her diseases, she was still able to be a shining light to everyone around her. It was not an easy thing to do, but she did it regardless. I know that she has many dreams and aspirations for me, a lot that I haven’t realized during the time she was alive. I’m going to try my best, mom. I know that you want that at the very least: for me to try my best.
Thank you, Mother. To steal a line from a show I don’t even watch: There are 8 billion people on this planet, and you’re the perfect mom for me. I love you more than I ever say or show.
Thank you for reading, trust no one, and see you in the next post.
