My mother died last year shortly before Christmas. She was diagnosed with cancer in September. They found several brain tumors and a tumor on her lung. At first the doctors were very optimistic. She was scheduled for surgery within the next few days to remove the one large brain tumor. The surgery went very well and she began radiation treatments on her brain for the rest of the tumors. Unfortunately, the radiation didn't do what they thought it would. My the end of November she had lost all her hair, could barely walk, and she just wasn't herself any longer. I still lived at home and was able to care for her after work while my grandmother took care of her all day. For about the last week she was alive, she was like caring for a child. This was the hardest thing for me to handle. It wasn't supposed to be this way.
She woke up on that following Saturday morning with shortness of breath and the doctor said she needed to be in the hospital. She didn't want to go and was very angry at me for making her as she had been with me throughout her illness. I suppose deep down she knew she was going to leave me and was, in her own way, trying to prepare me for life without her. She slipped into what the doctors called a semi coma and died 3 days later. My life hasn't been the same since. My mother was my life and my strength.
I had never lived a part from her. The last seven months have been very hard, to say the least. I am on my own for the first time ever in my life. My parents divorced when I was 4 and my mother raised my sister and I with little help from my father.
I am hoping things will get better with time, but it seems I miss her more everyday. She was and will always be...The Wind Beneath My Wings.
Andrea Schneider
You can send email to Andrea at: [email protected]
mail welcome
anniversary date 12-16-97
date of post 07-16-98
