Michele....

Allright. I'm finally ready to put it all out there... or begin to anyway. For some reason I have been hearing about a lot of people finding out that they, or a loved one, have cancer lately. I am no stranger to cancer. My mother, Michele... or Miki as her friends called her, passed away from cancer in 1993. She was only 42, and I was only 18. My grandmother passed away from ovarian cancer 3 years later, but she deserves her own thunder in a later blog.

Before I begin the story of her journey down cancer's wicked path, I want to tell you a little bit about my mom. She was truly a wonderful person. I don't just say that in the way that everyone who dies young is a "wonderful" person.... I watch the news... I notice that whenever someone dies, they were just the best person around. (Don't assholes ever die?) Don't get me started on that topic... maybe another time. She would give you anything she had if you needed it. I am sitting here trying to come up with the best adjectives to describe her, I think some of them would be beautiful, charismatic, loving, caring, respectful, intelligent, talented, artisitc, fun loving, outgoing, classy, sexy, funny, magnetic, it goes on and on. I realize I can't paint the picture of who she truly was unless you were one of the people to have been blessed by knowing her. You will just have to take me for my word. My grandmother told me once that she would always set an extra place or two at the holiday dinner table because my mom was sure to bring someone, less fortunate, home for a holiday meal. That was her.

I am an only child and my mom divorced my father when I was only 2. She worked two jobs to support us for a few years. We lived right next door to my grandparents in Thompson, Ohio until 1985 when we moved a whopping 6 miles away. They had a big hand in raising me. In about 1980 she met my stepfather; Paul. She was the love of his life and everything was good until she got really sick and eventually passed away. He was a very good father to me.... considering I didn't see my real one from the time I was 4 until I was 26. Oh so many stories to tell. Anyway I will blog about him someday too, but I can only bare one heartbreak at a time.

Well I guess I will start with the "story". I might not finish it all in this one sitting, but I will finish it. It was November of 1992. I was a senior at Geneva High School and was very involved with my high school sweetheart; Billy. My mom was the administrative assistant to the vice president in charge of quality assurance at Allen Bradley (which is now Rockwell Corporation). She had a very heavy workload and a stressful job. She was also in the midst of rehearsals for Steel Magnolias at Lakeland Community College. One of her passions was acting and she was very involved with local and community theaters. She started having severe headaches and went to see our family doctor.... who also knew her personally. He attributed the headaches to stress and sent her home with some pain medication. About a week later they were still very bad so she scheduled another appointment. Dr. Soandso was out of town so she ended up seeing a different one. He took one look in her eyes with the light thingy....you know what I mean, and ordered an MRI. The MRI found a brain tumor. I remember that evening well. I came home from being somewhere with Billy and she asked me to sit down in the living room. I remember the numbness that washed over me when she told me the news. She reassured me that it was going to be allright. They were going to remove the tumor, get her going on radiation therapy, and it was all going to be allright. Numbness... nothing but numbness.

I can't go on anymore with this right now. I need a break. This is my favorite picture of her. It was taken about a year or two before she was diagnosed with cancer. Below her is a picture of one of her paintings. Did I mention she was an artist. She studied at the Dayton Art Institute after high school. Yes... I am extremely proud of her.