The Self-Care Mindset

Introduction

“Being human is not a problem to solve; it's an advantage to harness.”

It happened at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday. As always, I was at work. I called my mom to ask what time my dad's flight would arrive from Denmark. He was returning to NYC where he was staying with me to continue his chemo treatment for bladder cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering. My mom had decided to stay behind in Denmark after having just gone through radiation for her third bout with breast cancer. Yes, you read that correctly—both my parents were battling cancer at the same time in two different countries.

That morning, she could barely speak. I asked her what was wrong, and she said she couldn't breathe and was on her way to the hospital. It all happened so fast. I told her to hurry. When the call came an hour later, notifying me that she had died in the ambulance at 11:05 a.m., I finished my work, told my team I'd be gone for a few days and went home to prepare to tell my dad about her passing.

I can still remember waiting for my dad to arrive at my apartment. It was the hardest day of my life. My mom had died only a few hours earlier, and with no time to process it, all I could think of was how I was going to tell my dad that she had died alone while he was on a plane.

No matter what I did, I couldn't fix the pain. No matter what I did, I couldn't ignore it either.

The only thing I could do was sit there and wait for him to arrive. And all we could do was cry together once I was finally able ...