On a miserable, muddy gray-brown dawn, I woke to shouts of "she's gone! She's gone!" I felt relief more than anything else. My mother's suffering is over. Only two nights ago, she was gibbering drug-haze nonsense as I tried in vain to reason with her about medications. Her eyes were vacant, unrecognizing and unblinking. In my frustration, I hugged her. I cried that I didn't want her to go. We weren't ready. As if someone flipped a switch, the haze cleared. "This is what I wanted," she said as she hugged me tightly and kissed the top of my head. "I love you. You'll always be my baby." She rocked me back and forth then drifted away into sleep.

I wish I could say that was the last cogent thing she said to me but it wasn't. The next day, in the midst of restless, drug-addled gibbering, I asked her what her pain level was. She looked me dead in the eyes and said in a clear voice; "eleven." Possibly, she was exaggerating, but I did not want to take the chance that she was suffering to that extent, not when cancer was eating into her bones and organs. With the blessing of our hospice team, we transitioned to higher doses of heavy duty drugs. This morning, mercifully, she passed.

Now that the chaos has waned and I'm sitting here in the still wake of her leaving, it hits me that I'll never show her my artwork again. We'll never have anymore silly nonsense fights about nothing and laugh over it afterwards. We'll never watch any movies or shows together. I never was able to convince her to try sushi. She'll never buy me another birthday present. I came out of the closet way too late in life and she won't get to see me marry my partner. I'll never ask her advice again. She'll never nag me about "missing a spot" when cleaning or about my fashion sense or not getting enough protein in my diet. We'll never talk politics over ice cream way too late in the evening.

My mother bounced back from one health scare after another, more than I can count on two hands, and right up until the end, I kept thinking that she would bounce back, any moment, like always. Not this time.

It was about a year from diagnosis to death. We were told we would have three to five but also that she was fragile and could go anytime. "Fragile." That is not a word I had ever heard used to describe my mother. She was anything but fragile. There was a reason her coworkers and subordinates called her Scary Mary. Make no mistake, she was well loved and liked but she ruled with an iron fist and brooked no shit. She was known for punching above her weight class. I have been inundated, throughout the course of my life, with stories of all the Goliaths she fearlessly went toe to toe with.

But suddenly, she was "fragile." I watched helplessly as this unyielding pillar of strength, a cornerstone of my life, crumbled before my eyes. For the first time, in my thirty-eight years, I saw her afraid. I saw her powerless, resigning to the reality that there would be no bouncing back this time. I watched her lose control of her body. Then her mind. I saw the moment when she gave up and stopped fighting.

Nothing good came of this. There's no light in the storm. I can only hope that like all things, the pain will fade in time. There is, however, a moral to be had and that is don't. Procrastinate. Your. Healthcare. Don't wait until it gets to the point where loved ones have to call 911 on you. Don't put it off. Make that appointment. Go to the doctors. Get the scan. Cancer is a bitch but if you catch it early, you can stand a fighting chance. So many of us seem to think we're invincible right up until suddenly, we're not. All it takes is one crack in the wrong place.

Take care of yourselves.

Those of you who can, do me a favor and hug your mom for me.