\[ egg in the hole with Avacado + kimchi with some kewpie mayo + siracha\]

TW: Death (of a Major Family Member)

None of this is gonna make any sense because I’m playing fast and loose with it. Just. Be kind lol.

My mom passed away in August 2023 due to complications thyroid cancer. It was always overactive, my mom was regularly seeing her doctors about it. One day, she went to the dentist and they did some kind of work on her I don’t remember why she went anymore. But, my mom, who very rarely made a stink about anything said her throat felt swollen and sore and said she was going to the doctor to “demand some answers!” She said it with a laugh.   
When she came back it was like the floor fell out from underneath me and I couldn’t grab onto anything. Cancer. It was aggressive. She had 3 months left. I’ll spare you all the lurid details, they still haunt me to this day. But by the end of it she couldn’t speak to me anymore, her voice robbed by the tube she needed to breathe. That was one of my favorite things about my mom. Her voice. I didn’t realize that till I couldn’t hear it anymore, I got so used to her nagging and wishing that she’d just leave me be. Now, I kinda miss it? I dunno, I have some voicemails and an interview that I did for school. The tv playing the news a bit too loud (she was going deaf), my dad making her laugh through my questions, my sister coming home from work, and my brother talking with my sister about something. It’s probably my biggest treasure.   
But cancer took that.   
My mom was writing on a clipboard through most of it. I have some of the pages. It feels so bad to get rid of them. My last good memory of her was us sitting in the icu. I was drawing something, I don’t remember what. And she took my hand in hers, I loved her hands too. They were always so soft because of her addiction to b&bw hand creams. It was so hot and I could feel the life burning out of her. She mouthed “I love you” and that was that.   
The next time I saw her she was swollen and pale and her eyes were open but glassy. I don’t think she was seeing. Even her hands that I loved so much were swollen. And the words on her clipboard was the word PAIN in her shaky hand. 

“I tried but I can’t make that number go down” the doctor said and pointing at the EKG monitor. I don’t pretend to understand it. 

When the priest read her last rights she was crying. I don’t know if it was spillover from the fact she couldn’t close them. Or she knew. And now I don’t want to know.   
So, there, In a tiny room in the ICU, with her brothers, my dad, my little sister and brother who looked too small for the enormity of the moment; my mom passed away on a rainy August morning. My biggest regret is I didn’t hold her hand in the end. It haunts me still, I just didn’t want to feel her go cold.   
I dunno. Maybe it’s the same reason I couldn’t bring myself to speak at her funeral. I couldn’t even say all this to my boyfriend at the time because when i would bring it up? He said “can you stop? This is stressing me out.”  
Hey. Sorry you were stressed out man, can’t imagine what that must be like.   
So I’ll say what I wanted to here. 

My mom was a bright, brilliant, bigoted, nerdy, ice queen, Air Force pilot, dancer, ex-nun, who always loved children as much as she loved cinnamon buns and brownies, and her family more than anything in the world. My grandfather denied her her dream of pursuing  dance and art so she made every effort to make sure I had that chance. My mom who read the Harry Potter books with me when I was a kid and went to the opening night of the movie with me and then put me onto Lord Of The Rings. My mom who loved to sing and dance, who would blast phantom of the opera in the car to jam. Who lept to comfort a strangers child after he had been in accident. Who always went out of her way to help people when she could. Who said sorry after cursing. Who walked into a sliding glass door at Disney.  Who left half finished notebooks of some of the worst recipes you ever heard of. She believed in God and even though I don’t anymore, I hope she was right. I hope heaven is real and she’s there. Without her I am more alone than I have ever been in this damn house. I miss her more than anything in the world.   
The last thing she said to me was I love you.   
I love you too, mom. 

Sorry if you read all this? Or thank you? It makes no fucking sense but I needed it out. I gotta go blow my nose real hard now and wash my face again. Love you. 

Thinking about my mom. I miss her.