I learned this week that my mother is sick, not like the flu sick, much worse—there’s masses growing on her pancreas and liver.  My mind didn’t get much passed that part of her phone call.  The air whooshed out of my lungs and wouldn’t really come back in, like her news was lying on my chest, crushing me.

I’m not ready is all I could think over and over again.  I know death is inevitable, it’s something we all have in common, but she’s still in her fifties, I shouldn’t have to say goodbye so soon.

She’s in pain.  She has been for a while, yet here I sit hoping she’ll never stop fighting.  Even though death would silence the agony for good, I’m not ready.  She’s been my sounding board.  The encouraging voice I needed when no one seemed to like anything I wrote.  Rejection after rejection she kept telling me, “Keep trying.  It’s good.  I know someone will see that.”

She was right.  A publisher finally saw what my mom did all along, but my first book won’t be out until next year.  It feels wrong for her to not to be able to hold that copy in her hands, so I selfishly beg and pray for her to continue.  What else can I say?  I’m not ready.  How in the world will I ever be ready?