My sister was throwing a birthday party for my nephews at her house in March of 2012. Everyone was eating and enjoying each other and I noticed my mother wasn’t eating. She has always been a light eater but she was being particularly picky this day. I had asked her what was going on and she had mentioned that she has had some stuff going on with her stomach lately but it was not big deal. Little did we know that just a few days later we would find out how much of a big deal it was and how our lives would change.

Stomach Cancer. I could not comprehend how this healthy, vivacious woman could get such a yucky thing. It was a punch in the face. She started chemo not long after that and though she pushed through, she started to change. Tired more often. Losing weight. Thinning hair. It was such a horrible thing to watch.

I was pregnant with my first son so I turned all my attention to what was supposed to be a happy pregnancy. I couldn’t wait to hold my little guy but it was always on my mind on if she would be in the room when he arrived.

She was scheduled for surgery the first week of July (my due date was June 30) so I spoke with my OB and we scheduled a planned induction for June 22nd to give her time to be there. The whole time I could tell she wanted to be there but was hurting inside. She was so tired.

After Brayden was born, she got to hold my precious little guy but had to leave to go home to lay down. A couple weeks later she went in for her stomach removal surgery and after plenty of complications, 40 days later she was released from the hospital. A battle began to relearn how to eat solids and gain her weight back to healthy. But we were all confident in her ability.

Months went by with plenty of progress. In April of the next year, my dad had a change of jobs and my husband had signed up for basic training so my son and I moved in with my mom and dad in a new house. After saying goodbye to Andrew for 4 months, my new chapter began with my little guy living with memaw and papa.

He loved living with my parents. He was active and funny and we had so much fun while waiting to hear from Andrew on what the next steps would be. In August, we got the call that Andrew would be stationed in San Diego but his ship was going on deployment right away so he would be away from us another 8 months. At the same time, things started getting funny with my mom again and she found out that her cancer was back.

I could feel things start crumbling around me. It was at this point that I started really feeling alone.