Farewell!

This time I have a reasonable excuse for not posting in a long while.
Last Friday my Mom passed away. It was a sad time and a happy time. For the past few years her quality of life wasn't the most enjoyable. The time that wasn't spent sitting in a wheelchair was spent lying in a bed. In spite of her physical confinement, her mind was as free and active as that of a twenty year old. The world came to her by way of the many books that she read. Mostly cheerful, seldom complaining she had a way of brightening up otherwise deary times. As our family sat around this weekend discussing remembrances of our life with her, it seemed like the only memories were happy ones and we ended up spending most of the time laughing. I think if she could have planned her own wake that's the way she would have liked to be. My Mom's real strengths were her patience and her sense of humor. An example of both of these traits was the fact that she has been an avid Cub fan for 97 years. (And as Derek put it, never saw them win a World Series) I'd like to think that some of her patience rubbed off on me. After all I taught her to drive when she was 40 years old. This was a real lesson in patience as well as a realization that I probably should never take up teaching as a profession seeing as how she had an accident during her driving test. The written one. (Only kidding, it was the driving part) I could go on for paragraphs with little stories about Mom after all, there are 97 years of them. So, here's to Mom. She survived open heart surgery, cancer and 74 years of me. Now that's one tough lady.

Bye Mom, catch you on the flip side!

My baby sister, Mary, Mom and I.
(Mom's the one in the middle)

Sharing some humorous remembrance from the past.

Mom always would work her way over to the window to wave
a pleasant goodbye to anyone who came to visit her.