A day to reflect on March 10, 2006

Ten years ago, I received a call to get to the hospital right away, that my mom had stopped breathing. We knew she was dying. She had been placed in the hospice care at the hospital.

I remember back to my years growing up and my mom having several various heart ailments (I come by them honestly). She always rebounded from them and kept moving forward. 

I remember her having an episode in the summer of 2002. I had just earned a master's degree from the Univeristy of Dayton and was preparing to move to Oklahoma to start a new job at St. Gregory's  University. My mom sensed my concern about leaving with her being ill and she assured me, "don't worry, I'm not going to die on you." She recovered, but then two months later, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and had surgery to remove the tumor. It was successful, but it took many months and a lot of tough love to get her back to being herself.

Pancreatic cancer is a very deadly form of cancer. Survival rates are low and typically people don't live more than a year from first diagnosis. I always thanked God for the extra time. Not only did we get a year. We got 3 1/2 years from her initial diagnosis.

So there we were, at her bedside on March 10, 2006, and she was gone. One of my first thoughts was that it was my grandma's birthday. Yes, my mom's mom turned 96 on the day she lost her eldest child. It was the second child she would have to bury. My uncle died in 1988. I decided to visit her, but really didn't know what to say. "Happy birthday" didn't seem to fit.

I like to think I got much of my personality from my mom. She was always very easy going and pleasant to be around. Unfortunately, I also got many of her heart issues, and then some. Still, I am very thankful to have had 31 years to learn and grow from her.