This past weekend, my wife and I had our first visit with mom since she was diagnosed with cancer. Here’s what we know: it’s stage four cancer of the pancreas, as well as some spots of lung cancer from her smoking habit. Today (Monday) she was meeting with another doctor who would be describing the course of treatment, care options and the like that he would be recommending for her case.

It’s a tough, grim diagnosis and a topic that makes something as common and pedestrian as door hardware seem like a preferrable topic of conversation. But as we visited, I was struck by our ability to make the time together enjoyable and fun, rather than morose and full of tears.

I suspect we were all trying to create some good memories to fall back on, once this progresses a bit more. That’s what I think. And I think it’s needed.

Mom tires too easily to go out for lunch anymore, so we brought a homemade meal to her. My wife, who is a wonderful cook, fixed up some homemade spaghetti sauce and brought it down with noodles and cheesy garlic bread. On the trip down, we stopped by a grocery store and picked up six different kinds of brownies: peanut butter, cherry frosted, mint chip, German chocolate, caramel and regular fudge. We all had a taste of each of the ones we liked.

We left the leftovers with Mom and Dad to make sure they had something nice to heat up for the next few meals. We took pictures and played cards and handheld games together at the table, talked some serious stuff but didn’t allow our time together to become dominated by the cloud of doom trying so hard to hover over us and spoil our time.

The end comes of each of us, eventually, until Yeshua’s return; with Mom, we have a warning that it’s coming soon, so I’d rather spend that time letting her know what she means to both my wife and me, creating as many good memories as we can in the time that’s left, than sitting around weeping about what we cannot change.

There will be time enough for tears in private… before she passes, and after.

Tags: door hardware, lung cancer, Mom, pancreas cancer