"It is such a secret place, the land of tears."

As I write this, I'm sitting in a hospital room in Philadelphia. My mom is laying in a hospital bed, wearing a cheap pair of headphones and falling asleep to a meditation CD on a Coby disc player. My headache has faded, and the pit in my stomach has been replaced with hunger pangs.

While my fingers pluck away at keys on a laptop, my mind is racing like it hasn't done in a long, long time. Depression rises and falls like a wave. With it apprehension and fear and anger. Hope and longing.

What's left of my mom's hair is a mess and still falling out on the pillow. This time more from malnourishment rather than chemotherapy. The light plays tricks with the shadows. Her skin is pulled too tight across her frame, and her port--the port that was supposed to be barely noticeable--sticks out of her chest like a cube of bone.

Rufus Wainwright's version of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" drifts through my own headphones.

Part of me wants to run away because it doesn't know how to deal. The part of me that never knows how to deal. A part that I hate.

But I don't run away.

There is no beep from an IV drip. There is no mechanical purr of machinery to blow off CO2 from her lungs or alarm rigged up when she doesn't take a deep enough breath. It's just "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" and her breathing. Noise from the nurses drifting through the door. Fingers tapping keys. Stomach growling.

Philadelphia was her second opinion. It turns out it will also be her last chance. Our last chance. The tumor isn't any normal tumor. Why would it be? Look out your window. Do you see that tree over there? Do you see how the branches grow from the trunk, and how those branches extend and grow and have smaller branches and smaller branches growing and extending and reaching into the sky?

Take that picture of that tree with it's almost endless branches, hold it in your mind, and shrink it. Shrink it until it fits not above your liver. Not below your liver. But inside your liver. Those branches? They don't reach to the sky. They crawl along your bile ducts and strangle them closed. They don't shade you from the sun. They prevent your liver from processing toxins. And medications.

My mom is sleeping in the bed with a tube hanging out of her side draining bilirubin from her cancer-riddled liver. But remember those branches we talked about? There are too many. They drain does it's job wonderfully--it drains the bilirubin from the side of the liver it's in. But there is too much. In fact, the organ functions so poorly that fluid drains into her abdomen and her belly painfully swells.

For the second day in a row, they brought her in to drain the fluid from her stomach. It's possible there is cancer there now too, but no one has mentioned it since the possibility was brought up. In truth, until the tests come back, there is no point in worrying about the possibility.

This is the story.

The plan was to drain the liver enough to be able to place a stent or two and help it function on its own. The bilirubin would drop to a safe level. Chemo could begin. Tumor would shrink. Then localized chemo to kill it off. That was then.

Now. The tree is too strong. The stent will never work. Other problems are arising. Like her inability to eat enough to keep the rest of her body working and the fluid pooling in her abdomen. The new plan. If all goes "well." Tomorrow, a feeding tube through her nose. Thursday, a permanent drain in her abdomen. Thursday or Friday, aggressive chemo to be continued once a week for two or three weeks until her body adjusts and a regular schedule can be established.

The nurse just came in to check the drain. My mom stirred but didn't really wake up. She made a sleepy request and I changed the CD in the Coby player. I gave in and am eating half a blueberry bagel. (Blueberry bagel? Seriously?)

I look at her face and I remember wiping the tear from her eye before she went in for the procedure this morning. She cried. I had to leave the room before the doctor told me it was time to go. I couldn't look at my aunt as we walked to the waiting room. It was the only reason we held it together.

Water. All I wanted was some water. And some air. My Klean Kanteen was in the car. I cursed myself with every step there and back. "Pull it together. Pull your shit together."

Suddenly I'm still a little boy. Mothers aren't supposed to cry. They are strong. They are infallible and invincible. I'm a little boy, terrified and huddled in a stranger's body watching my sick mother dying... Is she really dying? in a hospital bed.

But I have to be positive, right? We have to be positive. Take things in stride. One step at a time. One day at a time. We hope and we pray. We put our trust in this hospital with it's cutting edge technology. With it's amazing nurses (who seriously are among the kindest people I've ever met in my life) and it's renowned doctors. With the oncologist who will treat my mom when everyone else gave up. With the surgeon who saw her smile and told us, "I need to make this woman better."

Hope and Faith. Fear and Despair. They are sitting with me on this couch keeping my company. They watch me type. They gaze into her face and look me in the eye. They wave as Regret walks by (yeah, that was from the blueberry bagel...). They will climb under the covers with me. I wonder if they'll stay the night.

My mom is snoring softly. And I wonder if I will find Courage tomorrow.