Fifty-seven

Yesterday was the anniversary of my mother’s death. She died on May 7, 1991 at the age of fifty-seven. I will be fifty-seven next year. I will breathe a sigh of relief when I turn fifty-eight. There will be something to surviving my fifty-seventh year. I’m not normally superstitious, but I’ll admit – fifty-seven freaks me out a bit.

I am so young (I think I am!) and healthy (my doctor says I am!). I’m sure my mother felt the same. What am I doing to protect myself from the perils of fifty-seven? I quit smoking on the day my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. Cold turkey. Watching your mother waste away in M.D. Anderson Hospital is the best cure for kicking the smoking habit I’ve found. Forget the patch, I’ve discovered a better way. My husband quit with me. (He also stopped riding his motorcycle after my brother died in a motorcycle accident, but that’s another story.) I see my doctor regularly, not waiting and worrying, and putting it off like mother did. How long did she have the big C before she sought medical treatment? Her last excuse was she didn’t want to ruin Christmas. She went to the doctor after the first of January and was dead by May 7th. Four months of hell.

Perhaps she knew and was afraid to face it. Of course she knew. Part of me wants to be mad at her. Mad at her for leaving me, leaving my daughters, leaving my father, my siblings, my nieces and nephews, the great-grandchildren she would one day have. But you can’t get mad at my mother; she was too nice, too kind, too gentle.

She shouldn’t have smoked. She began at an impossibly young age and smoked a lot, refusing to believe the Surgeon General’s warning applied to her. Doctors used to say it was good for you to smoke. She even switched to menthol cigarettes when she had a cold or a sore throat. She said the menthol was soothing.

She was a nicotine addict. She was fifty-seven. She was my mother. I miss her.

I’ll be fifty-seven next year.