Thanksgiving 2014 my mother treated us all to a visit to Tucson to spend Thanksgiving with her. She put us up in a very nice resort just down from her beautiful home. It was a wonderful visit with all of our children and their spouses, my brother and of course Terry and I. We told stories, played music, sat by her pool, had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at one of the many "clubs" where they live.
Mother had the my daugher, my daughter-in-law, and me go through the jewelry and pick out what we might want, and we talked a lot about the future, their plans as young people and of course death. Because you see, my mother had emphysema, and we all knew it was a matter of time and the disease would take her.
Thankgiving would be the last time we were all together and I thank God that we were all able to spend that time together, it was in reality, her goodbye to my children.
Time went on and she continued to get weaker and I began to go and visit more often, and then in February she fell and that took a toll on her. However, she improved, but not to the point where she could get in the pool and swim or even go out with her friends. Slowly the months took her strength and she slept most of the day but fitully at night. She no longer was able to play cards with her partner and her friends, so her time was spent reading and watching television. At this point Hospice became our source of comfort.
She was no longer the active woman we all knew. As the months dragged by more "spells" as she called them came and went and finally her partner and my brother and I could no longer take care of her. She could no longer do those things we all feel are private necessities.
We were forced, for her own safety, to admit her to a facility in Hospice care. It is a very nice facility but it was not her home.
In May as we were visiting our son and daughter-in-law in South Carolina my brother called, she had left us for a place of peace and health.
We held a Celebration of Life in Ruidoso where we are from. There were so many people we have not seen in years, it was lovely and if I dare say, fun. And then we spread some of her ashes between our grandparent's grave. I say some because we had other plans as well, plans that really came together at the end.
We drove up the road to the ski area, Ski Apachie, where our parents were one of the first to ski on the slopes as it openend in the early 60's, we hiked just past Windy Point to a lone tree with wild flowers growing round. The view of the entire valley below is stunning.
And that is where we spread the ashes of the free spirited woman we called Mother.
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