My HERO!!!

"Did I ever tell you you're my hero....you're everything I wish I could be....I can fly higher than an eagle....when you are the wind beneath my wings!!!" That always has and always will be my song to my mom. She is my hero!! (Dad, you know I love you too...but it's just the "mom & daughter thing"). My mom was the most kind-hearted, gentle, loving, caring, smart, woman around (and yes, I am biased...hehe). She was a labor & delivery nurse for 20 some years, then took that one step further and became a nurse-midwife, so she would actually do the deliveries herself. She was loved by EVERY single patient she had. I have never seen someone who received more thank-you gifts, cards, letters etc... She delivered my first two sons; but was out of town for the pre-term birth (emergency c-section) of my third son. We did everything together...she was my mom, best friend, confidant, support system, my everything!! And even though my parents were divorced, they (and there new spouses) remained close friends. i was lucky to say that I had the "unusual" divorced family....we celebrated all holidays & birthdays together and they even did things on their own, as a foursome. And she loved her God; she was part of all womens ministries and the choir at her church. She would stand up there every Sunday and move with the music and she sang from her heart!!
Sadly, underneath all this "shine" in her life, she had some rain.... a "genetic flaw" (per the doctor).. she was positive for the ovarian cancer gene, which meant that even though she would fight the cancers as they came, it would never, ever fully go away because that gene would never leave her body. She fought such a brave fight--- for seven years, a new cancer (always ovarian cancer, just in different parts of her body) would come up and she would fight it; chemo, radiation diet etc.. and it would go away. But in August of 2005, we got the news that the newest cancer (a tumor in her abdomen) was not responding to anything, was growing and "there was nothing more they could do". Again, she fought...she fought so hard; she never gave up her will to live. On January 7, 2005, with her family at her bedside, and her pastor praying her through it, she lost that fight! By far, one of the worst days of my life--- very bittersweet to watch my 52 year old mother shrivel down to nothing, barely able to talk, but still worried about ME!!! And then have to let her go, knowing that it was best, knowing that she wouldn't hurt anymore, that she would be whole again and be with Jesus. Yet at the same time knowing that I was losing my mom, that we would never be able to shop again or go out to eat; that I would never be able to call her on the phone again to hear her voice (i still, to this day will occassionally pick up the phone to "tell my mom what happened").
She missed the birth of my daughter (but she was alive long enough to know that she was a girl) by a few months...her only granddaughter; and while she LOVED her boys, she would've loved and doted on a little girl too!!! Her memory lives on in everything I do, every day...and I pray I can be the woman that she was..... My mom, My HERO!!!!

here she is (i need to go through all my pictures to find better pictures, when she wasn't sick).....