Understanding my mother's decision to hide her terminal prognosis, thanks to Ossan's Love
My mother had cancer of unknown primary origin and when she heard it from her doctor,
she
already had a life expectancy of three months.
My mother told my father and my aunt (my mother's sister) and
decided not to undergo life-prolonging treatment and to die at her family home in her hometown.
I heard from my mother that she had cancer, but
she was evasive about many things.
She told me cheerfully, "It's okay, I'm just going to take it easy and recuperate at my parents' home for about two months."
So, I thought she would be back in two months
and was looking for an apartment in the city that would make it easy to travel back and forth to a large hospital.
However, that was not the case.
My mother lied to me at the very end.
When I heard the truth from my aunt, she only had a month and a half left to live.
That couldn't be true.
After all, she said she would come back.
I went to Osaka, my mother's hometown, immediately, but seeing her lying in her sickbed, I realized the truth
and asked, "Mom, are you going to die?"
My mother only replied, "I've had a happy life." And exactly a month and a half later, she passed away.
Not once did my mother complain.
Since then, inside me, there has always been
always, always
the question of why she hid her prognosis
why, why, why
after all,
I was the one in the family who spent the most time with her, wasn't I?
(Because my father worked overseas)
We fought, but we were always together, weren't we?.
Why didn't you tell me?
Am I not a person worthy of your trust? I remained in the dark for a long time.
I think that also became a very deep wound.
It also made it
harder for me to accept her death as well.
However,
the other day, I watched "Ossan's Love -Returns-" and
realized something from a single line. (Contains spoilers)
"If I tell you directly,
you might start crying."
She could tell my father and my aunt.
But my mother,
to me, her daughter, perhaps she didn't choose not to tell me, but rather couldn't tell me.
.
If my mother had told me her prognosis,
I would have been distraught, cried, clung to her,
cursed fate, hated the world,
and done everything in my power to make her live.
Seeing a daughter like that,
she might have feared that her resolve and preparedness for death would crumble.
a spoiled, selfish, crybaby daughter who has lived with her mother more than anyone else.
It might have been me who made it impossible for her to tell me.
But I still don't know.
I don't know, but if I had been more mature,
would she have told me?