After A three year battle with metastatic lung cancer my mother is finally able to rest.

she was the type of person who would crack an irreverent joke with a CEO, then hug the person begging for change on the street ( sometimes in the same day)

during one hospital stay I cant say which since they coalesce into an amorphous memory , I nervously questioned her doctor as to why she was so late returning from a CT scan. the doctor informed me she insisted on them taking another sicker patient first

when wheeling her down for her many radiation treatments I would always scan the waiting room for pediatric patients, knowing that although cheerful through her own pain and illness, the sight of a sick child could dampen her spirit

Throughout this fight doctors and nurses became friends and family, when she was cold during one visit her nurse took off her own sweater and gave it to my mother, my mom commented how she liked the perfume on it.. . three months later near the end that same nurse comes in with a large bottle of that same perfume

during her last days i watched a stoic no nonsense oncologist break down in tears when they saw how sick she had become, thanked god that she could still say my name if little else even to her last

But of course to anyone who knew my mom these things will come as no surprise

she was everything to me

.