Trusting the impossible

My mother and I, Cyprus 1983

Once again, I don't exactly know what to say, but the difference between tonight and two posts ago is that this time, I'm not feeling down. Things have been looking very gloomy indeed and my mother is getting weaker by the day. Today, she could hardly walk and her body was aching everywhere. It seems that this cancer is living a life of its own, because this is not the forecast we were given eight weeks ago. Although I felt that old panic resurface when my mother talked about her immense headache and the possibility of the cancer having spread to her brain (she has been correct in her predictions so far, so there's little use in trying to tell oneself that the odds are against it and it would be far too early according to the doctor's predictions), I also felt a new kind of clear-sightedness take hold as my sister and I went for a walk and talked things through.

There is a battle going on, for someone is desperate to have her "out of the way". It wasn't enough to have her banned from Africa and sentence her to a life away from what she held so dearly - for that was the prospect after her heart failure evacuation in January 2005: Never to go back to Niger, West Africa.

Then her cancer was discovered. It was said to be a very aggressive one and the doctors talked about it returning within a few years. Not an if, but a when - that when however being in a few years' time. Four months after completed treatment however, it was already back, having spread throughout her skeleton and to her lungs. The good news then was that skeleton cancer is so slow, and that there wouldn't be much pain involved. Well, the doctors have been wrong there as well. This is a very speedy thing which is being fuelled for a reason far greater than I can understand.

Now, that pestering little voice I was talking about two posts ago has been proclaiming lately that her time is up and that from now on, everything we do for her is useless. She will never get to go home to Niger again and we might as well back up the project and leave. However, there is a different song singing in my heart. It doesn't say anything about the what, the when or the why, but it tells me to where to put my trust. It tells me to believe in the impossible, and to rejoice, even though times are hard. And I will.

Ishtar