Last night my Mami had her second surgery in relation to the Brain Tumor that has caused such pain for my Mami physically and emotionally. It’s really completely changed the way we live our lives. I look at my life differently. I embrace my Monkey just a smidgen tighter. I fear things in the smallest but slightly neurotic way.

I didn’t write about the Tumor in the beginning. Honestly, I feared it. I still do today. I’ve had friends who have lost parents, but never before had I imagined what it would be like to lose mine. My Mami is my rock. She’s been there no matter what I’ve done or said and held me close when I moved out of the house I shared with the Bio after bringing home the 30-week preemie Monkey. We’ve looked fear in the eye together and scoffed at it. And now I fear. Not in the crazy-holy-shit-my-life-is-ending way but in the I-am-only-human way. There is substance to this fight she fights that I’m learning from every single day. And I thank her for fighting. I adore her for knowing we need her here. For being strong and brave even when I know it’d be so much easier for her to fold the cards.

After the diagnosis, I think everyone in our immediate family was left with this hanging feeling. Somewhere in limbo between where we were before and then hesitating to plan anything beyond the moment. That’s what I see when I look at my Monkey. The moment, right now. How I got here now seems inconsequential, but what I do with this moment and all those that line up are what matters.

I can’t always expect my Mami to fix it, but now it’s my turn.