My Mother's long Battle comes to an end.

by Sheila
(Olathe, KS USA)

My mother had been living with Brain cancer for almost 28 years by the time we lost her in August of 2010. She was such a fighter and teacher. She taught that you cannot give up and you can live with cancer peacefully. Her attitude was the one that cannot be easily described. She remained positive and faithful to God to see her through this disease. Right up to the end. She was told in July of 2008 that she had 3 months to three years to live. The hardest news anyone can face. She took the news hard but again fought the good fight. She ended up in a nursing home due to my dad trying so hard to take care of her that it nearly cost him his own life. Watching the disease take her away was not easy and in the end it was not cancer or cancer related that she died from. It was due to the two strokes she had suffered in the years prior to the terminal diagnosis she had been given. It was due to complications from those strokes that ultimately lead to her death. She suffered severe paralysis on her left side after one got better but then when she underwent the chemo treatment the final time it just erased all she had learned and left her with her left side completely paralyzed. So she lost the ability to swallow in the end and breathe. She was a trooper through and through. We all knew the cancer could come back and it did a total of four times. The fourth time was to be the last. She never felt sorry for herself which was so endearing. She left behind a loving and devoted husband, two kids and four granddaughters as well as three brothers and five sisters. She will be missed. Time has made things easier and harder at the same time. I know she is in a much better place but it does not make it easier to swallow her being gone. She was only 62. I miss her so much and hopefully she knew how much she was loved by us all. I feel lost somedays without her and find myself thanking God for allowing me to be older when she did go and not a kid. I do not think I could have handled it if she had left us 28 years earlier. Thanks mom for all that you gave me and I will never forget you.