Stepmom

Stepmom is a late 1990’s movie starring Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon. It’s about a mother of two who gets diagnosed with terminal lymphoma and the struggle she has with both dealing with her illness and her feelings of having her ex-husbands girlfriend “replacing” her in her children’s lives.

This was probably the worst film for me to watch right now but in a way I’m glad I did because it inspired me to get back to writing. Recently my mom has gotten sick and although we don’t have an exact diagnosis yet, one of the things being thrown around is lymphoma.

Let me tell you, when a doctor starts saying words like lymphoma, things get really scary really quickly. It started out with just some fatigue. When the fatigue didn’t get better my sister and I made her go the emergency room. I work in a hospital so for me being there is just another day. I don’t get scared or worried because it’s like a second home to me. But when the doctor came back with a worried look on his face and started using words that end in “-oma”, it was like a burglar had broken into my house. That feeling of safety and security was gone, and I knew what it felt like for other people to have loved ones in the hospital.

One thing about Hollywood is that they tend to gloss over anything dealing with sickness in movies. Even in ones about an illness. They cut away when someone is vomiting. The actor usually still has perfect makeup on after surgery. And they might show a character biting their lip in worry but they leave out the part where they cry in the shower or when they’re alone because they are scared out of their mind. In real life, we don’t have that option to cut away from the scenes that might be hard to watch.

My mom has never really been sick before so the last few days have been really hard on us as a family. Our mother is the center of our family, our strength. Seeing her sick and scared is easily one of the hardest things we’ve had to deal with. There are worried looks on everyone’s faces and that tell tale sign of crying,a red nose, keeps popping up.

This is a brand new thing for us as a family to deal with. But the one thing the movie did get right is the family unity that comes out of a situation like this. We have all banded to together and decided that no matter what the diagnosis is, we’re going to beat it together. She’s not going to go through any part of this alone. We are going to share the load and be her strength and support through every step of this until she gets better. Because that what family does. So in this case, the movies got it half right.