I don’t know how to be useful.

I catch myself laughing and want to scold myself. All the time.

I cried while at the bank and then walking through Chinatown. I hid behind a car and held my face in my hands and didn’t care about my makeup or the way the strangers on the street looked at me. I cried and swiped at my face with my forearms and hands as I typed, attempted to type, what will likely turn out to be a good-bye letter to one of my favorite women in the world. I want her humor with me always, her easy way with people, her quick laughter and smiling eyes, the way she treated children like adults, that she always looked conspirtatorial–the corners of her lips hinting at a smile, light dancing in her eyes, eyebrows about to cock–like she was sharing a joke. I see the way she self-consciously touches her head, hides the wispy hair under her hats. I wince and want to tell her she’s beautiful and elegant, that I wish I could wear scarves the way she does. I have been eyeing a Valentino scarf for her, saving the money, weighing between the different colors. It may be the last thing I give her. I may have to steal it–crash my fist through the glass at Bergdorf, calmly tell them why I’m taking it, keep my voice even and steady, not break down into tears.

I’ve been having nightmares where my mother is leaving me and won’t tell me where she’s going. I’m chasing her on foot down the streets and she’s saying to me–her voice echo-y and ethereal–over her shoulder, as she floats quickly over the pavement, to let her go–that I’ll be fine. When I ask her where she’s going, she puts her hands on my shoulders, holds me there with an incomprehensible amount of strength, and tells me to stay where I am. Then she turns the corner of a foggy street and is gone. I’m screaming for her and I can only hear her say, “It’s fine. It’s fine. Take care of your sister. It’s fine.” And I’m yelling into the air after her, “Will it really be fine? DON’T LEAVE ME HERE, MOMMY. PLEASE.”

I want to fly home. I want to be home. I want to sit at the hospital. I want to hold this woman’s hand, to have something worthwhile and healing to say to her children. To convince people it will be fine. To be right.

I feel rooted here with fear and the shame of guilty relief. I wish I had been a doctor sooner so I could be hers. I wish I’d had the foresight to know to be a doctor at 18 or 19 and been a pre-med at Berkeley, busted my ass to get to medical school, gone through residency in record time, put on the stupid white coat, opened up a practice in the Bay Area, signed her up for the best treatments, made her better, made her well again. I’m still convinced on most levels that I can make it better, make it right, for her and her family. That by the time, I were a doctor or nurse, I would have discovered some bit of magic to wave over her. Voila. Cancer-free. Let her and her children live out the rest of their lives without the tension of death, the resentment of not having enough time, the pressure of being the perfect child/parent/friend in what little time we have left together. Wash it away.

I thought I would do that for them, for everyone I knew. Save them all. My one super power–the avoidance of death and loss.

What are the things we can take care of and what are the things we should? Who gets to decide and who’s going to tell me how I should know?

I look at my phone and I’m scared to take calls from my family. I wonder what they’ll say, how they’ll sound on the phone. Upbeat? Hopeful? Will they be crying? Will I know? I feel cold with the possibilities.

I looked around SoHo, at all the tourists and shoppers. I wanted to scream out How can you all go on like this while she’s dying? While she tries to use all her energy to share her wisdom, laughter, joy, heart, life with her children? JUST STOP. But the words caught in my throat and the bottoms of my sunglasses filled with tears. I sucked at my cheeks to keep my entire face from falling apart. The bright sun and beautiful weather seemed a cruel farce.

I want to help. I would hurt to help at this point. Anything but anything to not feel useless. To use up my hands and all of my free energy. To not sit here and simmer in these emotions, the memories, the futile anger, the bottomless grief.

Where is the magic? I need to find it before it can’t help anymore. I’d be selfless about it. I would give her all of it. I’d hand it to her kids, show them how, let them save their mother, restore what small bits of a normal childhood and adolescence they have left. Please. Let me find the magic.

Please.