It's 9:37 Sunday night and I'm sharing a motel room in Prince Frederick, Maryland with my niece and nephew as we navigate the sudden terminal diagnosis of their mother, who may only have weeks to live.  We do not know anyone in Maryland.  Neither does their mother, really, except her most recent boyfriend, a quiet, kind man we just met whom she hadn't seen in 18 months until she arrived in his driveway 3 weeks ago, her life's belongings packed into her yellow Nissan XTerra.  She had left her last home, in Nevada living in her 2nd ex-husband's guest room, almost immediately upon completing breast cancer treatment, misleading all of us - and herself - into thinking she was cancer-free.

She's not cancer-free.  In fact, as Thursday afternoon progressed we learned she has cancer in her breasts, lungs, brain, and probably liver.  And so here we are trying to navigate raw emotions, sterile paperwork, and a plan for a woman who suddenly can't travel to anywhere else but knows no one here. Here being the place where she will most assuredly die. 

Somehow I must drive my 18 year old niece and 20 year old nephew away from their mother tomorrow afternoon without being able to offer them what I have always wanted to offer them -- absolute security and certainty that their mother will be okay. 

So we're gonna watch a movie and sleep and when we wake up we'll do what we always do -- handle whatever presents itself in the moment.