My Blurred Lines

That Year. 
The final chapter of the first "career" every person has. From Kindergarten on the ultimate goal is that diploma at the end of the Senior year. 
It's all about That Year. 
Being the big dogs. Senior-itis. The best lockers. First out for lunch. Getting OUT.

Everyone remembers high school. Some fondly. Some of us not so much in the "OMG!I'dgobackinaheartbeat!!!" kind of way. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't horrible. I wasn't bullied or pushed down in the hallways. I just wasn't one of the "cool kids". Sports wasn't my forte, which was kind of a prerequisite for being part of the cool crowd. I had enough friends, usually had a boyfriend, and was involved in a good variety of activities. I was there. 

I can tell you details of things most of my classmates don't recall... like the day Sarah said "This is crap!" in English class, to which our teacher emphatically, and somewhat hysterically, replied "It's NOT CRAP!" 

From that moment, not a single day of the rest of our HS career went by without hearing that phrase.

I remember one of the speeches I wrote in speech class. A speech about my mom. 

I remember a lot.

Until my lines get blurry. Right at the start of That Year. From then on, I can't give you more than a handful of details about my life from August to May.

What do I remember? I remember suffering through the two weeks of two-a-day workouts for volleyball before quitting. I remember giving up pop. I remember losing 20 pounds in the first few months of the school year. I remember my sister couldn't be at my HS graduation. I remember...

mom having breast cancer. 

That's it. There is very little I can tell you details about from That Year. I can tell you I was probably an awful daughter during That Year. I wasn't around much that I recall. That Year, I did what I wanted. I quit band and added the good art class. Because I wanted to. I stuck with all the other stuff. Cheerleading, drama, speech, art, work, boyfriend, youth group, tutoring, DARE representative, teacher's aide, swimming. I started going to gymnastics again. Playing golf. Whatever it was, I did it. 

I remember participating in those things, but I can't tell you what the play was (I think I was in two that year). I can't tell you which speech events I was in or how well I did. I can't tell you if the boys did well in basketball or football that year. I can't tell you...

I can tell you there was a day I knew something was wrong. Something was "off kilter" with the universe, if you will. We were weeks from putting that BIG X on the calendar in the hallway outside of Mrs. Dunsmoor's room. Weeks from being done. Weeks from getting OUT. 

I was in Coach Bailey's room for the class period before lunch. I was waiting for Geri to call me from the school office and tell me something was wrong. I knew. Something. 

Something had happened. That morning mom had attended a funeral for a friend who had lost her battle with cancer. She had to sit upstairs in the old country church with the wooden floors. Her shoes, slick from the slushy snow-melt, didn't handle the deep step down and she fell. She fell hard. Breaking one ankle and spraining the other.

Weeks from graduation.
Weeks from The Final Chemo Treatment. 
Final. 
Ever. 

In May of 2015 my mom will celebrate 20 years of being cancer-free. 20 years of doing things because she wants to. Because she can.

Tonight I finally wrote about it. About That Year. About how I know I was an awful daughter. An absent daughter. How that year blurred my lines. 

Every year my sister sends my mom a card to celebrate her last day of chemo treatment. I couldn't tell you the date. 

Those lines are still blurred.


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Of special note to this story are the truly incredible students my mom had that year in her classes. They did things HS students don't usually do. Through her sick days and treatments they developed a deep relationship that lasts to this day. I am so thankful for those girls. I'm thankful they were there when I wasn't. Thank you, ladies. 
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