I am young strong healthy and beautiful

“Ya’ll know how your Gram is. She doesn’t want you all to see her while she is in the hospital. You all will have to wait until she makes it back home and then we can all go see her.”

Eric said, “Mama is Gram going to be alright? Stomach cancer is pretty serious. How long has she had it?”

“Honestly Eric, I really have no idea how long she has had it. Apparently she has had it for a while, but Mama is not one to acknowledge any sickness until she absolutely has to.

I don’t have any answers for your questions at all. Mama also kept the doctors and nurses from talking to us about her condition. She only told us that she has stomach cancer. That is all that I can say right now.

Mama looks like her regular beautiful self. She is bright and lively as she can be and she still has her sharp wit. She said she will be going home soon and at that time we will all go to visit her together. In the mean time, I am going to get myself together and go back out to the hospital and just be there with Gram.”

Morgan wiped the tears from her face and said,

“Mama while you are getting dressed to go back to the hospital; I am going to make food for you, Aunty Tonya and Aunt Yvonne.” Morgan headed into the kitchen and Paul joined her.

As I walked back to my bedroom I could hear them talking about Gram. I went to my bedroom. I pulled out some jeans, a t-shirt and socks out of my dresser. I sat down on the bed and unplugged my cell phone. I turned on my phone and saw that Tonya and Yvonne had called numerous times.

I could also see where the Hebrew Israelites had called and left messages. I put my phone on speaker and just let the voicemail play while I was getting dressed. My sisters left five messages. The rest of the messages were from the Hebre...

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...e hurting just like we were, but if they could keep control of their emotions and treat her like she wanted to be treated, then surely I could do the same thing. I finally understood how Mama wanted to be treated. From that point forward I set out to do just that. Obviously, the fact that Mama has cancer was not new to them. They had known for quite some time that Mama was ill and they had time to adjust to the news.

When they came into the room Mama had a bright sparkle in her eyes and the ladies were talking, cracking jokes and making the best time of it that they could, while they were together. My sisters and I watched their interaction for a little bit and shortly thereafter we joined them in light hearted conversation and an up lifting mood. That is what Mama wanted. That is what we were going to give her. It also made this whole thing easier to deal with.