We’ve always had a rocky relationship, but she’s my mother. And she’s dying.

She went in for horrible constipation. After days and then bile, blood, and puss coming out of her, two different specialists. They found a giant mass in her colon. She nearly died during the operation, and her cognitive skills were gone for days. She’s just now begun to pick up comprehension again. It’s probably cancer, we’ll know for sure in a few days. The prognosis is bleak.

And I’m thousands of miles away with a $1 in my bank account and the paralyzing fear she hates me. That because we left like we did, she’ll never understand how much I actually love her— despite the fact that she and I are toxic to one another in the same space. That I’m sorry. That I learned a lot from her.