My strong, creative, loving mother died on November 28, 2008, 144 days after a chest x-ray set us all on a path we never expected to follow.
During the course of her sixty four years, she was a mother to six and grandmother to seven; was a member of the Portland Volunteer Amublance Squad; ran her own floral and crafts shop; taught pre-school; was a domestic abuse and rape crisis counselor; a member of the Family Guidance Center; a Curves employee; a proud member of her Relay for Life team, the Purple Posse. She often said she walked for my Aunt Pat. Now my mom's team walks for her, as well as others lost to cancer. My mother loved her family, her flowers, shopping, talking, cuddles, and the ocean--oh, how she loved the ocean!
Mom would answer the phone in the middle of the night and shortly thereafter leave to get a battered woman to safety. She would patiently rub the back of a sleepy 4-year-old until he could finally nap. She made lasagna for every family gathering, and spent an inordinate amount of time making sure everyone's Christmas gifts were "fair and equal." She sat on the sidelines cheering at softball, basketball, and soccer games. She attended many band concerts and made I can't even count how many Rice Krispies treats to sell at the marching band stand at football games. She tried to talk me out of taking up the trumpet in 4th grade because "your lips will stick that way," but never missed an opportunity to tell people she had a trumpeter in her house. She dragged me to pow wows, craft shows, thrift shops, and sales racks with the unfettered glee of someone who loves to shop. On my last visit home to see her before she died, she proudly directed me to the pile of fifteen brand-new sweaters in my childhood bedroom--all for me, none bought for more than $5 on clearance. That was my mom: generous and loving to the point of overkill, and you loved her back for that, and so much more.
She left behind her mother, her sister, her husband, her children and grandchildren, a son-in-law and daughter-in-law, her brothers-in-law, her nieces, and many, many friends. (Her mother, my Grammie, passed away in February of 2014.)
We miss you, Mom. I hope that you and Aunt Pat are looking down on us on occasion, sharing the smiles we all still manage on the good days. This isn't fair, and it isn't what any of us planned. You should still be here, to hear Hayden call you "Bachi" the way we always wanted him to. As you said so often while you were so sick, it was just "the luck of the draw." I only wish our draw had been luckier.
I love you, Momma.
_____________________________________________
Gone from My Sight, by Henry Van Dyke
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!"
"Gone where?"
Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!" there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: "Here she comes!"
And that is dying.
During the course of her sixty four years, she was a mother to six and grandmother to seven; was a member of the Portland Volunteer Amublance Squad; ran her own floral and crafts shop; taught pre-school; was a domestic abuse and rape crisis counselor; a member of the Family Guidance Center; a Curves employee; a proud member of her Relay for Life team, the Purple Posse. She often said she walked for my Aunt Pat. Now my mom's team walks for her, as well as others lost to cancer. My mother loved her family, her flowers, shopping, talking, cuddles, and the ocean--oh, how she loved the ocean!
Mom would answer the phone in the middle of the night and shortly thereafter leave to get a battered woman to safety. She would patiently rub the back of a sleepy 4-year-old until he could finally nap. She made lasagna for every family gathering, and spent an inordinate amount of time making sure everyone's Christmas gifts were "fair and equal." She sat on the sidelines cheering at softball, basketball, and soccer games. She attended many band concerts and made I can't even count how many Rice Krispies treats to sell at the marching band stand at football games. She tried to talk me out of taking up the trumpet in 4th grade because "your lips will stick that way," but never missed an opportunity to tell people she had a trumpeter in her house. She dragged me to pow wows, craft shows, thrift shops, and sales racks with the unfettered glee of someone who loves to shop. On my last visit home to see her before she died, she proudly directed me to the pile of fifteen brand-new sweaters in my childhood bedroom--all for me, none bought for more than $5 on clearance. That was my mom: generous and loving to the point of overkill, and you loved her back for that, and so much more.
She left behind her mother, her sister, her husband, her children and grandchildren, a son-in-law and daughter-in-law, her brothers-in-law, her nieces, and many, many friends. (Her mother, my Grammie, passed away in February of 2014.)
We miss you, Mom. I hope that you and Aunt Pat are looking down on us on occasion, sharing the smiles we all still manage on the good days. This isn't fair, and it isn't what any of us planned. You should still be here, to hear Hayden call you "Bachi" the way we always wanted him to. As you said so often while you were so sick, it was just "the luck of the draw." I only wish our draw had been luckier.
I love you, Momma.
_____________________________________________
Gone from My Sight, by Henry Van Dyke
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!"
"Gone where?"
Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!" there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: "Here she comes!"
And that is dying.
My strong, creative, loving mother died on November 28, 2008, 144 days after a chest x-ray set us all on a path we never expected to follow.
During the course of her sixty four years, she was a mother to six and grandmother to seven; was a member of the Portland Volunteer Amublance Squad; ran her own floral and crafts shop; taught pre-school; was a domestic abuse and rape crisis counselor; a member of the Family Guidance Center; a Curves employee; a proud member of her Relay for Life team, the Purple Posse. She often said she walked for my Aunt Pat. Now my mom's team walks for her, as well as others lost to cancer. My mother loved her family, her flowers, shopping, talking, cuddles, and the ocean--oh, how she loved the ocean!
Mom would answer the phone in the middle of the night and shortly thereafter leave to get a battered woman to safety. She would patiently rub the back of a sleepy 4-year-old until he could finally nap. She made lasagna for every family gathering, and spent an inordinate amount of time making sure everyone's Christmas gifts were "fair and equal." She sat on the sidelines cheering at softball, basketball, and soccer games. She attended many band concerts and made I can't even count how many Rice Krispies treats to sell at the marching band stand at football games. She tried to talk me out of taking up the trumpet in 4th grade because "your lips will stick that way," but never missed an opportunity to tell people she had a trumpeter in her house. She dragged me to pow wows, craft shows, thrift shops, and sales racks with the unfettered glee of someone who loves to shop. On my last visit home to see her before she died, she proudly directed me to the pile of fifteen brand-new sweaters in my childhood bedroom--all for me, none bought for more than $5 on clearance. That was my mom: generous and loving to the point of overkill, and you loved her back for that, and so much more.
She left behind her mother, her sister, her husband, her children and grandchildren, a son-in-law and daughter-in-law, her brothers-in-law, her nieces, and many, many friends. (Her mother, my Grammie, passed away in February of 2014.)
We miss you, Mom. I hope that you and Aunt Pat are looking down on us on occasion, sharing the smiles we all still manage on the good days. This isn't fair, and it isn't what any of us planned. You should still be here, to hear Hayden call you "Bachi" the way we always wanted him to. As you said so often while you were so sick, it was just "the luck of the draw." I only wish our draw had been luckier.
I love you, Momma.
_____________________________________________
Gone from My Sight, by Henry Van Dyke
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!"
"Gone where?"
Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!" there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: "Here she comes!"
And that is dying.
During the course of her sixty four years, she was a mother to six and grandmother to seven; was a member of the Portland Volunteer Amublance Squad; ran her own floral and crafts shop; taught pre-school; was a domestic abuse and rape crisis counselor; a member of the Family Guidance Center; a Curves employee; a proud member of her Relay for Life team, the Purple Posse. She often said she walked for my Aunt Pat. Now my mom's team walks for her, as well as others lost to cancer. My mother loved her family, her flowers, shopping, talking, cuddles, and the ocean--oh, how she loved the ocean!
Mom would answer the phone in the middle of the night and shortly thereafter leave to get a battered woman to safety. She would patiently rub the back of a sleepy 4-year-old until he could finally nap. She made lasagna for every family gathering, and spent an inordinate amount of time making sure everyone's Christmas gifts were "fair and equal." She sat on the sidelines cheering at softball, basketball, and soccer games. She attended many band concerts and made I can't even count how many Rice Krispies treats to sell at the marching band stand at football games. She tried to talk me out of taking up the trumpet in 4th grade because "your lips will stick that way," but never missed an opportunity to tell people she had a trumpeter in her house. She dragged me to pow wows, craft shows, thrift shops, and sales racks with the unfettered glee of someone who loves to shop. On my last visit home to see her before she died, she proudly directed me to the pile of fifteen brand-new sweaters in my childhood bedroom--all for me, none bought for more than $5 on clearance. That was my mom: generous and loving to the point of overkill, and you loved her back for that, and so much more.
She left behind her mother, her sister, her husband, her children and grandchildren, a son-in-law and daughter-in-law, her brothers-in-law, her nieces, and many, many friends. (Her mother, my Grammie, passed away in February of 2014.)
We miss you, Mom. I hope that you and Aunt Pat are looking down on us on occasion, sharing the smiles we all still manage on the good days. This isn't fair, and it isn't what any of us planned. You should still be here, to hear Hayden call you "Bachi" the way we always wanted him to. As you said so often while you were so sick, it was just "the luck of the draw." I only wish our draw had been luckier.
I love you, Momma.
_____________________________________________
Gone from My Sight, by Henry Van Dyke
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!"
"Gone where?"
Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!" there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: "Here she comes!"
And that is dying.
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