Mum.

In honour of Mother's Day, I've decided to write a little something about my mother. This by far has to be one of the most painful things I've ever written.

Mum,

 

In honour of tomorrow’s Mother’s Day, I began to think about just what this day is all about. It’s a day to acknowledge those women who resemble a modern day Superwoman. Every mother in the world is Superwoman. The daily tasks they perform and somehow manage to do it with such ease is inspiring. I still don’t know how they do it.

 

My mother was and still continues to be inspiring to me. She was a true fighter. Sadly, this will be my 4^th mother’s day that I will spend without her. My mother, Robyn Lori Staggard was an amazing woman. I may be a little biased but after talking with family and her friends, they didn’t have a bad word to say about her. Even those who only met her once for a few hours said she was one of a kind.

 

She didn’t exactly have an easy run at life either. Whatever life threw at her, she would always throw it right back and say ‘try again’. Whether it was pure strength or pure stubbornness, I will never know. She was born with a kidney disease that usually corrects itself by a very young age, around 2 or 3. They didn’t detect it until she was in her 20s (scary as I myself am in my 20s, but I’ve been checked). I will never forget the story she was telling me about finding this out. She said ‘I never knew anything but pain’. That line still haunts me today. After she had her first transplant life returned to normal. She travelled, worked overseas and even met my father on T&G corner in the town of Geelong. I still smile every time I drive past that corner. In 1990 my parents were married (officially. They got married twice overseas but it wasn’t legal) in Werribee in Victoria. Planning to have a family was next, except for one major obstacle. Her doctors had told her that due to her kidney disease, having children was going to be a near impossible thing. The Burton stubborn streak flared and she basically said ‘watch me’. Two years later, I was born in Geelong hospital but even I had my complications. Thankfully, Mum didn’t carry on the gene for her kidney disease.

 

We lived in Queensland for around 10 years before moving to NSW and living with Dad’s family. She studied at the local TAFE to become an enrolled nurse, being the massive smarty pants she was, graduating with top marks. She only lasted in the role for 1 year before one afternoon I spotted a lump forming on her left arm. She used to joke around saying that it was nothing but I urged her to get it checked. The week later, the world seemed to crash down around us.

 

It was cancer.

 

Listed second on the scale of the rarest cancers in the world. And the most aggressive. There was no crying or screaming to the skies asking ‘why me?’ she held her head high and got on with treatment, vowing to kick this in the butt and overcome it in true Burton fashion. Radiation or chemo therapy doesn’t just affect the person receiving the treatment, it affects everyone. I went along to every appointment she had after school and even tried to stay in the hospital with her overnight. After way too many harsh rounds of radiation therapy, she was given the all clear.

 

Three months later it was back. And to its nature, it was more aggressive than before. This time, it was tangled in the nerves between her neck and shoulder. It was impossible to remove but not impossible to treat. This time, she cried and screamed ‘why me?’ and she had every right too.

 

More chemo and radiation treatments were in eye sight and I was right there beside her. I even helped her put on her head scarves every morning before school. 3 months on and the doctors said there was nothing they could do. They gave her months to live. Again, in true Burton fashion, she was stubborn as all hell and held on for 3 more years even trying to deal with her kidney failure and her ailing body functions.

 

My Mother will always be a true inspiration to me. The way she lived and held a smile on her face was nothing short of amazing in my eyes. The days when I feel like it’s just too hard or I’ve hit a wall, I will always remember the endless hours of advice she gave me. Her main sentence was to just keep going.

 

If I turn out to be half the woman she was, then I consider it complete satisfaction.

 

I love you Mum, x