Sharon's {cancer} Story: Leaving w/out saying goodbye

I alluded to this story in my previous post and said I would share... so here we go:

There was far too much stress on all of us during this time. And I know I did not handle it well at all. Being home was always like kryptonite for me anyways. I didn’t really have any people that were close by to ground me and give me truth… it was too easy for me to get swept up in the current of family drama and the enemy’s lies (God doesn’t care, He’s left you, you’re all alone, etc, etc).

Ryan and I were constantly fighting (neither one of us managed the stress well) - he was responsible for ALL the wedding plans (all the while hearing everyone's demands on what our wedding should be) while his soon to be wife was all but present. I felt like a buoy being tossed about the sea - I simply moved along w/ the chaos instead of seeking stable ground. My sister was in an extremely abusive relationship that was taking a turn for the worse as her and her boyfriend (now husband) got deeper into drugs while neglecting her little girls. My mother's husband (aka satan) seemed to think it a great opportunity to wreak havoc in our family as my mother grew weaker and unaware of his evil schemes.

The pressure and drama was becoming all too much for me and I just snapped. I didn’t know what to think or do anymore. I was hearing so many different things and I was getting lost in all of it. ‘Satan’ was feeding my mother so many lies about me and my soon to be husband that I felt like I just couldn’t deal w/ it anymore. In a panic, I called my future mother-in-law for advice as mom and I were arguing (bad, bad idea)… b/c now I was feeling the pressure from her (Ryan’s mother) to prepare for my new role as wife and embrace my ‘new’ family. Not what I needed to hear at the time I was fighting w/ my dying mother.

What I needed someone to tell me was to be there for her. I wish I just had someone that would have grabbed me and said, “Your mother is dying. Dying! I know you don’t want to believe that. But she is. The time you have w/ her is precious and you will never, ever get it back. You have the rest of your life to work on your marriage and to build a new family. But right now, all that you have known as family is going to change forever. Your mother, who has every bit of your past stitched into her heart, is leaving. These are precious moments you’ll never get back. Focus on her. Everything else will still be here… but she won’t. She needs you.”

But who would speak those words to me? Who would know that I needed to hear that? Maybe God would have convicted me of that had I given Him the chance (instead of cursing Him in my thoughts). But no, like I said, I was so lost and looking to anyone (and I mean anyone) that would tell me what to do. And that is exactly what I did.

As soon as I got off the phone w/ my mother-in-law, I left as fast as I could in tears - w/out saying goodbye or anything. I just left. I wanted to escape the madness. I wanted to escape my sister’s self-destructive behavior, escape my nieces neglect, escape opinions on who should walk me down the aisle and who should pay for the wedding, escape ‘satan’s’ looming presence over me and my mother, escape her sickness, and ultimately escape her impending death. I needed (or so I thought) to go be w/ my fiancé and focus on our fast approaching wedding (less than 2 wks away) and try to be the best lil wife I could be.

Little did I know how much my choices during this time would haunt me for years to come.