A Mother's Goodbye.

Well it's Mother's Day and here is mine on her wedding day. She was a great lady, she's been gone now for 10 years..I can't believe it's been that long.

We were great friends, did everything together. My dad was in the navy so we moved a lot and I mean a lot. She was the constant in our life. First day of a new school and I'd be sweatin' bricks..sick to my stomach and she be there. I 'd come home crying because some kid said something and she'd be there. I suppose that's the reason why I've always been home for my children, she taught me what was important..to be there.

After my dad retired from the navy he became Chief of Protocol for the Province of Alberta. That meant a lot of functions had to be attended by my parents. Mom and I use to go shopping for material and patterns for her dresses..lots of evening wear, ball gowns and day wear. It was fun. We'd make a day of it and go for lunch and hang out.

Her first grandchild she met, the second she met but didn't really understand who he was..at least I don't think she did. I had gone home to visit them in Kelowna BC after my own relationship had fallen apart. I discovered I was pregnant with my second child while I was there. One morning my dad called me, 7am I think it was. He said he was having problems waking my mother up. I went to her and I knew right away. We called the ambulance and it was determined at the hospital that she had an AVM (Arterial Venous Malformation). It's a type of non-hereditary aneurysm...a birth defect actually. Anyway, a surgery later and a year in rehab later SHE decided she'd had enough and stopped eating.

I woke up at 1:30am January 26th 1998 and started to walk around the house for no particular reason..wasn't thirsty, didn't need to pee..just restless. The call came at 1:40am. I heard my father answer the phone..I knew she was gone...I had woken as she passed.

She was a grand lady, a phenomenal mother. Always missed...never forgotten...these are the words I had put on her gravestone.

Happy Mother's Day.