The Lilac Bush

Last fall, I was out with Adrienne for a mother-daughter day and we stopped for lunch. While we were eating, a woman walked up to the counter to place her order. When I heard her accent my eyes filled with tears because she sounded just like my mother who I lost in 2018. Adrienne reached across the table, took hold of my hand and said, “Having a moment, Mom?” and I just nodded. Then we sat in silence for a while as the emotion washed over me.

I haven’t heard my mother’s voice in seven years, except once inside my head, very clearly, in 2019 when Adrienne was going through cancer treatment.

There was a mall a short walk away from the hospital where Adrienne went for chemo and after the obligatory bloodwork we used to head down there while we waited for her infusion appointment. On this particularly lovely spring day we passed a hedge of lilacs and I told the story of how my older brother and his wife used to “liberate” lilac branches from back alleys and bring them to my Mom because it was one of her favourites. We laughed together, stopped and sniffed the scent, felt the velvet of the flower petals and continued on our way.

Adrienne had been looking for some sweaters to put over the camis she wore to chemo to give the nurses easy access to her port and in one store there was a rack of them totally in her style. There were two colours that she really liked and she was struggling to choose which one to take home since both of our budgets were tight and buying both was out of the question. As we were standing there weighing the pros and cons of colour choice, the manager walked around the store putting 50% off signs on EVERYTHING. Adrienne still struggled, thinking she should take advantage of the savings.

And then I heard it, that lovely Scottish-accented voice in my head, say…

“Oh Debbie, tell her to get both.”

Did my mother’s spirit hear us sharing a laugh at the lilac-stealing memory and come into our world that day to whisper in the ear of the manager that everything should go on sale so my daughter could afford both sweaters? Was it just being in the right place at the right time when head office sent out the memo? Did I hear her voice in my head because the scent of the lilacs had in that moment brought her so close in my thoughts? I will never know but…

I hope it means that there will be moments just like that when Adrienne will hear my voice when I am gone, and, if cancer takes her, my granddaughter will hear her Mom, too.

The stakes of game changed when Adrienne became a mother. She told me once that if she were lucky enough to have a child after cancer that it would change her perspective on pursuing treatment after a recurrence. Knowing how chemo feels means it would be an informed decision a second time around, but she knew she would go further to live if there was a child in the picture.

In recent years, I have met too many young women doing just that, and it breaks my heart. When I hold Adrienne in my arms, I breathe her in, feel the warmth of her body against mine and hold her just a little bit longer than I used to. If I lost Adrienne, I would mourn forever, but I have the cognitive tools to help me cope. But her little girl runs around looking for her Mom when she leaves the room to go to the bathroom. What tools does she have to manage never being able to find her?

Breast cancer forces young mothers to work through scenarios that they just shouldn’t have to. At a time when they should only have to think about toilet training and first days of school they are recording videos and filling in journals so that their children can find them in the memories. They are seriously evaluating who the right person would be to step in if their child has important questions and the other parent doesn’t have the answers. They are hoping that others will tell stories that keep them present when they are not. They are wondering if they will be forgiven for leaving. And they are doing all of this while trying to manage all of the physical and emotional side effects of what they are experiencing.

So to my daughter:

If a cancer recurrence takes you, I will tell your stories, Adrienne, as long as I have a voice. I promise that she will know you and what her existence meant to you. She will be sure that you did all you could to stay with her. And when I am gone she will hear three generations of voices in her head telling her to buy both the damn sweaters.