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In Which the Protagonist Loses the Fight, But Manages to Save Her Two Daughters in the Process: A Series of Questions for My Mother

Natasha Hooper

    1. Which made you more anxious? The pregnancy or the cancer? Were you all new life and hopeful in one moment, then wishing well and worry in the next? A pregnant woman, trying to give life while fighting for her own, trying to be more than just a contradiction. Did you ask God about it? What did he say?

    2. When anticipating our arrival, I know you must have thought “how magical”, but in the back of your mind, did you think of how we would be just two more things that would take your breath away?
Did you think of the strength it would take to feed two life forms while trying to starve a tumor?
In the back of your mind, did you wish your body hollow? Did you wish your body gutted and empty? Did you wish your body barren?

    3. Can you tell me what it was like to battle this at the age of 25? As I am writing this, I am just days away from my 23rd birthday and I need to know if I will follow in your footsteps. If I will soon become a memory. If I will give birth to things that will outlast me. They say death comes in threes and we were once a trilogy. Should I prepare myself to say “I knew this would happen”?

    4. Some accuse me of being too distant, of not wearing the proper emotions at the right times, of not showing that I care. Did I get that from you? Did you learn how to keep the wind from rustling your branches? Did you learn how to keep the rain from rotting your roots, to protect your core, to protect your seeds? Did you learn how to always keep your trunk upright, no matter what life or what decay was happening inside? Is this how I learned to be the strong one?

    5. Tell me about the hospital. Did it feel like a catacomb of dead futures? Was each day an exhibit in a museum of final resting places? In the 5 months after our birth, did it feel like an extended stay in a lonely waiting room? Did it feel like 20 weeks full of goodbyes? Is this why I am getting better at goodbyes? I need to know.

    6. How does one forget her mother’s face? Does that make me a bad daughter? I am sorry. The time lapse does not lend its long term remembrance to me. But I am trying. Hoping that I can carry the best parts of you with me. Hoping that I can find myself in your memory.
    Hoping that I can be all the woman that you were and at least half the sacrifice.

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