In the Beginning........

Cindy:

When our mom was first diagnosed with cancer people came from everywhere different states, different countries. There was lots of crying, hugging, crying, laughing, crying, smoking,crying,flowers and fruit baskets.

You probably get the point by now, my front door had become a revolving one and my home grand central station.  Being of Arabic decent my family tends to do three things religiously..

drink coffee, eat and smoke.  Being myself a non-smoker that was 7 months pregnant, rules were set in place pretty quickly..

All smoking had to be down outside even It was the middle of winter.  My sister and I took turns bringing out coffee, falafel and pastries.  My poor husband ran out to the store so many times it was almost funny. Almost. My children who are French Canadian & Palestinan but born and raised here spent half of their time asking me why these people were talking to them in another language and the rest of the time running away from the smells coming from my kitchen where my grandmother who hadn't seen my mom in over 15 years was cooking something my mom would definitely eat and would "put meat on her bones". My second cousin at some point asked me where the local gnc or vitamin store was only to return with some magical pills he had seen on an infomercial known to cure cancer that was after he told her she shouldn't do chemo because it was poison and would kill her faster.  On that note....Our week long "just came to say hello" became can't wait to see you go...

Needless to say we had everyone on their merry way by morning and we haven't seen them since.......
For the first couple of weeks after that we received phone calls and visits from all kinds of friends and family.
As time passed the phone stopped ringing as much and the visits became much less frequent.  
I'd like to be able to say that upset me but it really didn't.  We welcomed the peace and quiet and have spent the past few months writing letters,making videos 
and telling stories.