Although I am quickly approaching the "ever dreaded" mid-forty mark I am fully aware that time is running out for me. Everything and everyone meaningful to my existence becomes significant to the third power divided by two. As I have mentioned in previous posts I have come to grips with my own mortality and I now scurry to do a little bit of this, and a lot more of that, in terms of meeting my long term goals and spending invaluable interpersonal time with loved ones and friends.

As we watch our children grow into adults we yearn for quality time with them. I know I do. Anyone who's ever been to my house and questioned why I am always home alone have heard me quip, "My children don't even know who the hell I am anymore". I say this sarcastically of course, but I rarely see my children and spend quality time with them even less.

They are both involved in "love" relationships and spend extended amounts of time interacting and engaging with the friends and family members of their significant others. My son goes to school full time and my daughter works for now. So where does that leave me as a parent? When do I get to spend real "quality time" with either of them?

When my children entered the world of "teenage hood" it was very difficult for me because throughout their lives I sacrificed my life in hopes of a better one for them. Their well being became my entire world. What dedicated parent doesn't do this to some extent? It would appear that they have no time for me now.

Now I settle for moments. Sometimes when my son comes home from school (school ends at 8 p.m.), he comes into my room to say hello, flashes that killer smile of his, and we automatically are engaged in momentous conversation. He might talk to me (or "kick it" with me as he describes it) for an hour or so. When it's over that's all the time I get. That was MY "moment". I might not have another "moment" with him for another few weeks so I take what I can, when I can, and I am grateful. At my age, those small "moments" are precious.

Yesterday I presented my son with a card. I am a "card giving" type of person and I had no particular reason for doing such. I realize that this is my way to somehow grasp his or her attention and reel them back into my zone if only for a brief while. My son was surprised that I had given him such a card. He was visibly touched and reminded that he is still loved. The card served as a reverberation that his existence and his opinion of me, and the distinct relationship between mother and son remains valued BY me. Every now and again I feel the urge to remind them of "who I am", a "remember me" type of deal.

Before I was even able to comprehend speaking publicly, creating a blog or writing a book I yearned to leave a legacy for my two. A gift of some sort for them to be proud of once my life has been reduced to a memory. With my children's father paralyzed and no longer able to actively participate in their lives on the level he once was, I am it as far as the one who "actively parents". I now comprehend wholeheartedly that I must seek a legacy no more. Each time I write, each time a book is published, a story posted, printed, downloaded or e-mailed, my legacy is emphasized, underscored and exclaimed on each page that bears my words.

I am hopeful that my two have the logic of mind to read the words that I've written while I am alive, fused with energy, healthy and well. Reading words soaked with love and drowned in mood after a loved one has passed can be hauntingly overwhelming. Long after I am gone, my expressions will unleash profound emotion within their hearts each time they choose to examine them. What you've just read and what you read now is history in the making. This is my children's history and THIS IS THEIR legacy.

In previous years most of the women in my family sooner or later succumbed as a result of some form of cancer. More often than not, their fate usually was huddled with breast cancer. As a result, I carry the weight of having to tirelessly give myself self-breast exams once per month and endure painful mammograms yearly. Because of the high risk that I carry of acquiring this dreaded disease, and at the persistence of my physicians, I also have a sonogram soon after my mammogram. I am told one test picks up what the other test does not. So far I have been lucky. Every woman over the age of forty should have a mammogram at least once per year. (And you don't need me to restate what all of us continually hear on television concerning this fact.) We as women must assuredly know what we need to do in order to remain healthy, hopefully we're all doing it.

As of late, I started grappling with one very important question that I would like to ask my children. Unfortunately, and due to a recent outbreak of spinelessness (hopefully temporary) I have not yet queried my two because they will unquestionably believe that I know something that I am not sharing with

I do not want to take away their right of choice as was unavoidably done to me. When I was a young girl my mother sat my sister and I down and told us that she was dying, point blank. There were no if ands or buts about it. There was no heads-up to offer. It was the end of the line for her and that was that! I'm sure that she must've known how little time she had left although she never shared her timeline with us. I was stunned coupled with disbelief and fear. From the moment the words "I'm dying" left her mouth, my childhood as I knew it would be no more.

My two are well beyond the age that I was when the bomb was dropped on me. However I had no choice in whether I wanted to know the inevitable pertaining to my mother's premature demise. Maybe she told my sister and I in the manner and with the level of acceleration that she did because her time left on earth was minimal. She probably felt pressed, wanted to get it out of the way and get on with her funeral arrangements, which she did. Nonetheless, I still think that my two should have a right to decide if knowing of my pending death beforehand is something that they'd want to take on.

When I think of my death, wake, funeral or cremation, I weep. I shed tears because I know how it feels to have a parent die. Sure I was 12-years old but the pain was still laced with anguish even so.

I tell my two the day that I pass, the way that they view people in the world and the world itself, will change for them forever. Their response is usually "Oh Ma, you look healthy. You're gonna be around for a long, long time. What does "looking" healthy have to do with anything?? For their sakes, I hope their intuition is correct.

When I began to think of their lives (especially present day before they are fully ready to live on their own in the real sense), I cry. I cry because I know how hurt my son is going to be when he remembers each time that he brushed me off when I was telling him something for his own good. I cry because I know full well how painful it's going to be when they must go through my belongings to determine who gets what, what goes where or to whom, or what must be thrown away. I cry when I think of my daughter and how terrible she is going to feel when I am gone and she remembers and realizes that her "attitude" was one attitude too much and not warranted at the time. All teenagers have attitudes, especially girls. I've excused her and moved on. But will she be able to "forgive" herself? Will my son?

When I am clairvoyant and allow myself to envision the scenarios surrounding my death, I weep still. But when I cry I am not crying for myself because if I am taken from this world today, I will depart knowing that I have lived my life to the richest extent possible. My rewards have never been defined by money or materialism. I cry for my two beautiful children. They have never had a family member that's "considered close" to them die. Although one can never properly prepare themselves for the death of a loved one no matter how much one tries to convince himself otherwise.

I am hopeful when I pass that my two are at least engaged or married having someone to share their grief while they come to terms with my demise themselves. I know that my two are not "babies or little ones", and my death will have a different effect upon them as opposed to if they were young children. With that said, it is not a painless task nonetheless, but it is one undertaking that the survivors of the deceased must confront one day, some way.

I cannot protect my two from the inevitable pain of the loss, the pain of loosing me, their mother. I don't want them to feel destroyed in the world as a result of my passing nor do I want them to suffer with guilt for what they should or should not have done where I was concerned.

The bitter realization for me is that some things in life are foreseeably unavoidable. I have protected my children from many obstacles and hurts in life, it may very well be their misfortune that I cannot shield them from this one and THIS is why For THEM I Cry.

© 2005 by C. V. Harris. All rights reserved.
About the Author

C.V. Harris pens with ease about topics others would rather forget. She draws insightful parallels from real life scenarios to make you think, think and re-think again. She lives in New Jersey with her two young-adult children Michael and Ashlei. She is currently working on her Memoir. Visit her Blog at http//www.onewriterwriting.blogspot.com, or e-mail her at onewriterwriting@hotmail.com.