Me and ‘Gi,’ my 15-year-old-daughter, have a Wednesday morning tradition. (For anyone who just broke into a sweat because I didn’t write “Gi and I,” you’re gonna be ok… it’s fun to put fork on the right sometimes;)

On Wednesdays she starts school an hour later, and it gives us time to stop at The Coffee Bean for her “Winter Dream Blah, Blah, Blah,” and my boring house brew ‘with room.’

Mr. Big, our Boston Terrier, is my co-pilot on the school runs every morning. He is flawless in his purpose to sit on laps and calm any pre-school anxt – mine or theirs.

I give a whistle as we walk out the door, and ‘Big’ rouses himself from whomever’s pillow his butt had graced the night before, prances into the hall with his jowls flapping, and a SNORT announcing each step downstairs.

SO.

I’m lying in bed at my parents’ house in Cleveland. Took a red eye out last night after a concerned call from my dad about my mom’s condition:

“She’s not herself, Kare. She has no energy and just shuffles from the kitchen to the couch and back-again and stares out the window. She does nothing but that all day, and has been drinking iced tea OUT OF THE BOTTLE!”

I just snort-laughed writing that - imagining you all wondering: “what’s the emergency here?”

But for the bits of Mary Patricia (that’s my mom) that I’ve shared with you all, and what you experience as the best parts of me - you couldn’t know that her lack of energy and slight abandonment of couth is akin to an F-5 Sharknado sweeping through the house, and understandably freaking-out my dad.

So I answered said freak-out with a plane flight to assess the situation in-person, accompany my mom to doctor’s appointment, and in general to let them know I’ve got their backs.

Cancer is funny.

Especially Merriam-Webster’s definition numbers 2 and 1a (placed in that order here for literary effect).

 Funny  adjective

 fun·ny | \ˈfə-nē

2: differing from the ordinary in a suspicious, perplexing, quaint, or eccentric way: PECULIAR

My car has been making a funny noise.

1a: affording light mirth and laughter: AMUSING

His account of the war came in bits and pieces, sometimes bloody, sometimes funny.— Robert Penn Warren

I didn’t know that cancer was funny as-in ‘peculiar’ (definition 2), until my mom decided to forgo further treatment for it.  At times that feels tragic, but more often it feels peculiar because of what the meaning behind the word cancer now brings to each moment that I’m with her. 

I used to meditate like a motherf@cker to get the same cut-through-the-crap, ground-of-being-ness that I feel in her presence of late.  It’s funny how 6 simple letters (there’s not even a fancy one like x, y, or z) strung together manifest such a potent, bullshit detector. 

Without the words being said, there’s a pervading sense of ‘not this,’ ‘THIS.’…that brings us to a place so powerful, it must be where we came from. 

It’s 3:00 am on the eve of my kid's Birthday. And once again, I have transformed into a fairy.

On 3 nights of the year (there are 3 ‘shes’), I grow wings (get the ladder out of the garage), and pull a magical birthday wonderland of colorful streamers and twinkly orbs out of my butt (go to the dollar store and buy a bunch of party shit and balloons to throw up on the walls of her room) for the little princesses to wake up to. As my fairy magic has matured, a process has evolved:

1) wait patiently (wine helps) until the kid falls asleep.

2) wait another 45-minutes after that for the deep, dreamless sleep (to further minimize the likelihood that she’ll wake up if I accidentally step on her face).

3) sneak into her room and voluntarily engage my fight-or-flight response for an eternity as I decorate her room with crepe paper (SCRRRRAPE & CRRRUNCH), scotch tape (“SHHHHHT!…SNAP!”), helium balloons (“BLUUUM!” & “BLAAAM!” – or whatever is the sound of helium balloons knocking together in the quiet of the night), ribbon, and a gift bag with tissue paper (“SHWOOT!” & “CRUNCH!”).

4) have another glass of wine and lament the 6 months I just shaved off of my life before putting myself and my frazzled nervous system to bed.

5) wake up in the morning and remember why I love being the birthday fairy.

Though exhausted from the mental marathon from the night before, it’s so worth it when she comes in my room with the sentiment of a Christmas morning painted on her face: “Something magical came in the middle of the night, just for me.” And the words that make it all worth it:

“Mom! She came!”

{Your Name Here}, our testing and analysis has reveled that you have a sexually transmitted terminal condition called Life. 

It’s unbelievably contagious.  Survival rates are next to none, and the symptoms can be really unbearable at times. 

These include, but are not limited to: