By Nicki Orser of nickiorser.com

Sometimes I wish my family could just die. I mean, I don’t want them to. I don’t want them to suffer at all: no broken bones, broken hearts, bad hair. I don’t want them to ever have to wear Spanx. No boners in the middle of algebra, no break-ups, breakdowns, Broke-Back-Mountain-style heartaches.

I do want them to be normal. Like kids in movies. Who nap quietly in the back seat while their mother comes up with a break-through-invention idea about decorating and selling shoes, like the millionaire mom who decided to add flowers to her kids’ crocs. Then, there will be a little montage of me busily sketching and hot gluing and consulting with designers while wearing a white business suit and everyone happily comes along for the ride.

But I never get to the million-dollar invention stage because I spend all of my energy trying to keep everyone from dying. It’s like, a lot of work trying to save people. It’s a Mad-Eye-Moody-style of hyper-vigilance that makes me anxious and sleepless. I think it might be easier to just get it over with. Like, c’mon, Shoe, drop already so I can relax. You know? Lounge around in black, eating casseroles.

That’s what I was thinking about when I learned that my classmate Kayla had died. Just yesterday we were twirling flags together with the marching band. Now, she was dead. Just like that.

When someone called from Kaiser a minute later to tell me I needed another mammogram because the last one looked funny, I was like, Oh My God. Total Celia Rameriz foreshadowing. All this time, I’ve been rehearsing everyone else’s demise so I’d be ready when things fell apart, and suddenly, I was the one who was dying.

I felt bad for my kids, because they’re already pretty screwed having me for a mom. Now they were going to be orphans.

I mean, my husband is still alive, but it’s not like he would remember to feed them.  He’s great. He just does things differently, like parenting without the worry and the guilt (and the sunscreen, hats, coats, vitamins, reading, and the food.) He makes the kids floss. So they’ll have nice teeth—in their coffins—when they die of over-exposure and an all-fruit diet.

After I’d finished planning my elaborate funeral rituals (I was thinking a Love Actually-style slide show featuring a Sade soundtrack), I began to worry about leaving my husband all alone.

Then I remembered the beautiful widow who’d moved in right across the street. She seemed like the kind of person who folds the laundry instead of moving it around the house in piles until the clothes get all dirty again from the dog sleeping on them. I could be like the Ghost version of Patrick Swayze and hook them up, from the grave. I just needed to go on Craigslist first to look for a pottery wheel.

Then I started thinking of all of the good things about dying: How I’d never have to do our taxes, cook dinner, or empty a litter box ever again. Goodbye to saying goodbye to those extra thirty pounds. Hello, food! Mommy’s dying and we are getting on a Meal Train! In the world of Food as Currency, casseroles equal love.

I got off the phone with Kaiser and knew instantly something was wrong. The left breast was kind of achy and way bigger than the right one. I’d never even noticed that before.

At the appointment a few days later, when the technician saw my scan, she said it seemed off, and sent me next door for an ultrasound. The doctor splooged that stuff on and moved the wand around. That part was kind of nice, actually.

I had to crane my neck to look at the screen. Then I saw a shadowy figure. A face. In my boob. Like definitely a tooth. I had one of those tumors that had hair and teeth. It was like a little person, a twin. The twin I always wanted, the twin that would have made me special. It was right there, at my breast—in my breast—a living, breathing being, pulsing in my mammary area.

The doctor looked at it and he looked at me and said, “You’re fine. Get dressed.”

“Sorry?”

“It looks ok.”

I wanted to ask him, but what about what the mammogram lady said and why is this side so much bigger? That’s just my normal?

I could see all those casseroles, like holograms floating through the air—gluten-free lasagna supreme—disappear before my eyes.

Later that week I was crying in my driveway about it to my friend Stefanie and she said, “God has a better plan for you.”

“Mm-hmm,” I cried, thinking, yeah, eye roll. Because I knew somehow, the climax of this story was supposed to be better. I was supposed to do something: write a book, run a marathon, flip a car. I was supposed to transform.

Instead, I spent the rest of the week in a daze. I got up. I waited a socially acceptable amount of time before going back to bed. I repeated.

I functioned, sort of. I vowed not to burn myself up to keep others warm. I avoided chocolate before noon. I tried salmon jerky and colonics. I flossed.

Then Stefanie stopped by after work on Friday. She brought casserole.

This story was originally read on Listen To Your Mother.

***********

About the Author

Nicki Orser is a blogger and a mom who is passionate about helping other moms write their way into a creative life. Find her on Facebook or read her blog at www.NickiOrser.com.