“How are you going to be a mother, father, and brother to your sister, and finish college at the same time? Your future is just as important as Juliana’s.”
“I’ll finish college. I’ve been working on several new apps I think will be enormous hits and will make a ton of money. When I release them, you’ll have the best medical care available. You’ll get well and we will all still be a family, Mom. No one is going anywhere.”
Any other scenario wouldn’t work because I couldn’t imagine my life without the two people I loved the most in it. The news Mom laid on me knocked the breath out of me and broke my heart. I wanted to scream at the world, beat my fists against my chest, and order it all to go away. At the end of the day, when I had to face the truth along with all my fears, all I really wanted was my mom. I missed the days when she’d hold me and assure me everything would be okay.
“You’re the best son a mother could ever ask for, Rod. I believe in you, and I know you’ll make your dreams come true. But raising your sister is too much to ask of you. I want you to have your own life. You need time to have fun with your friends, meet someone special, and travel the world while you’re young enough to enjoy it. You can’t do that when you have an eleven-year-old little sister who needs help with her math homework every night.”
“I’m a software engineering major, Mom, so I can help with all her homework. Please don’t give up yet. Fight this disease with everything in you, and I will too. You’ll have me here with you, every step of the way, and I’ll do everything I can to help.”
“I’m not giving up, baby.” She paused, staring at me as if it was the first time she’d seen me… or maybe the last.
There I was, a twenty-year-old grown man, and she still called me baby. But her use of the endearment never bothered me. She’d told me many times I’d always be her baby, regardless of how old I was. Sitting at the table with her, I would’ve given anything to go back in time to be her little boy again.
“Understand, I’m only trying to be rational about my prognosis. If I don’t plan for every potential outcome for the future now, Juliana will be the one who suffers the most.” She squeezed my hand then covered it with her other one. We had made a pact, and her gesture was as good as a handshake to seal the deal on my part.
When our conversation was over and we’d cried enough tears to drown ourselves in, I called my friends to say I wouldn’t make it out with them after all. My heart and mind weren’t into partying, drinking, and chasing girls anymore. Life changed in the span of a few minutes. Those six words irreparably damaged my heart.
I hadn’t had the luxury of wearing rose-colored glasses since the day Dad walked out and left us. But the news from Mom shattered me in inconceivable and indescribable ways. After hearing the finality in her voice and planning for Juliana’s future without her in it, I knew I’d never make a full recovery from losing her.
During the weeks following the bombshell news, she and I had several long conversations about her prognosis, and I finally persuaded her to undergo the chemotherapy treatments. Doing something was better than nothing at all. Maybe the medications would at least prevent the cells from replicating so quickly and give us a fighting chance. The poisonous cocktail made her sicker than I’d ever seen her before, but she never complained. She promised she’d fight until her last breath, and she was determined to keep her promise to us.
Though Juliana knew Mom was sick, it was hard to explain to an eleven-year-old just how aggressive and terrible cancer could be. She alternated between holding onto Mom as if she couldn’t force her hands to turn Mom loose, and acting as though she was afraid to even approach her bedside. All normal reactions for a child, the doctor assured us when I’d taken Mom for her treatment one day. Sickness is a scary thing, and Juliana was dealing with her feelings the only way she knew how.
I couldn’t blame her. There were days I wanted to hide in my room to escape reality. I wanted to ignore the way Mom’s skin turned grayer by the day. I never pointed out how much weight she’d lost or how slowly she moved when she had to get out of bed. But I noticed every detail. Regardless, when she called my name, I answered her. Every time. The hour of day or night was irrelevant.
Over the next few months, I put all my energy into writing hundreds of lines of code, testing them, refining them, and marking the days off the calendar until I could finally launch the apps to the public. While Juliana was in school during the day, I worked on my college classes. She worked on her homework at night, and I helped Mom around the house. Juliana was sharp as a tack, so she didn’t need much help with her schoolwork, but I was there when she asked. After they both went to bed, I stayed up writing code for my apps until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer.
Success was within my grasp; I could feel it in my bones. Though I still wasn’t quite in the sweet spot, I knew it was a matter of when rather than if.
By that time, Mom’s rapidly deteriorating health forced her to take a medical leave from her job. The owners rewarded her years of dedication to them by keeping her on the payroll as a regular salaried employee, easing part
