I'M AT A LOSS FOR WORDS, BUT PLENTY OF WORDS FOR LOSS

My mom wasn\'t a very good mom. I\'m not mad anymore; or at least, I\'m not as mad as I used to be. She married my dad the day after she turned 16, and squeezed me out shortly after. She didn\'t finish high school or even care about it. In the next four years, while her marriage was falling apart at the seams, she managed to have two more babies. The year after my parents divorced, they decided they didn\'t want us anymore. My dad drove us all night to my grandma\'s house, and told her that if she didn\'t take us, they were giving us up to the state. My grandma kept us, my dad died, my mom showed up sporadically in between her many husbands. These are the moments that defined my childhood. They are also the moments that are still defining my adulthood. For too many years I was angry, bitter, and cynical. I left home and never went back. After spending thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours in therapy, I decided that it was time to let it go and move on. I started talking to my mom on the phone, and making yearly treks to wherever it was that she was living. Not a great relationship, but not a nonexistent one either. As the years have progressed since I gave birth to my son, I have tried to forgive her completely and establish even more of a relationship. The phone calls have turned weekly, and visits more frequent. She even sends me birthday cards. I am happier now, even though I didn\'t admit I was unhappy then. I know that when it comes down to it, even your family members are just people you know. Somehow, it\'s better that they are just people that you know and love, and I am finally getting there. Which is why, when my mom called yesterday and told me that she has cancer, I didn\'t know what to say. What do you say to someone you wished dead for years, someone who is now dying when you don\'t want her to? How is it that something can be there waiting for you to come back to it for years and years, but when you finally decide you want it, it gets snatched away? These are the questions that are defining my right now.