A Wedding and A Funeral

Well, my Etsy store is back up and running. I had it closed down for about a week and a half last month due to a sad event.

The night I got back from my niece's wedding (see below), I found out that my mother was going into hospice. She has been battling breast cancer that has now been in her bones and elsewhere for 4 years. At first we were told that it could be a couple of weeks at least or maybe up to 2 months, so I planned on going out there at the end of October.

We got a call 3 days later, on Thursday, October 23rd that she was starting to slip fast. My 2 sisters got there on Friday, and my brother and I arrived on Saturday, October 25th. "There" is Las Cruces, New Mexico , where my parents moved 20 years ago for their retirement.

I went straight to the hospice from the airport Saturday afternoon. I tried to prepare myself for how she would look, but still it was a shock. She was so skinny, her cheeks and eyes sunken in. She was no longer able to talk, and she appeared to be comatose. She was also heavily medicated for the pain. Since she could not talk to me, I am glad that I had spoken to her over the phone the week before. She did not sound good then either, and you could tell she was having trouble breathing.

My poor mother! All we could do was talk to her, hoping she could hear us, they say that the hearing is the last to go, and pray. We took turns spending the night on a cot in the hospice. I stayed the night on Sunday/Monday. That morning, on October 27th at 10:35a.m., she went to be with Jesus.

My Mom and Dad on Cruise for their
50th Anniversary-2005

We are all relieved that she is no longer in such pain, but it is still a loss, especially for my father. My mother was 77 and he is 82. His mind is very sharp, but his health is not that good either. He survived cancer himself, but has heart issues and needs to use a walker. My younger sister and brother are still in New Mexico with him, and hopefully, my brother, who has never married, will move out there permanently early next year. We would all be so relieved to have a family member living with my dad, instead of him being alone.

Please keep my family in your prayers. God Bless.

Leslie's Wedding

I was in Chicago this weekend for my niece's wedding. Leslie was the first baby in the family, my older sister Mary's first child. It would be another 8 years before any more kids came along, so Leslie was always special to her mom, aunts, uncle and grandparents. Her dad was not in the picture for long and soon my sister was a single mother to Leslie. But Leslie was such an easy to please child, so easy going, she and my sister, her mom, really made a great team.

When Leslie was six, my sister met a wonderful man, Tom, who loved Leslie as his own, and he and Mary got married and Tom adopted Leslie. A couple of years later her brother Ted was born and three years later her sister Laura came along.

In the mean time, my niece Leslie went to school, graduated, went to Med school and is now a doctor doing her internship in San Francisco (don't know the hospital name, so sorry). It was on the 11th day of a 12 day Mediterranean Cruise that Leslie met her future husband, Damon. Even though she was in Chicago at the time and he lived in San Francisco, he pursued her and they kept up a long distance relationship until Leslie got her first choice of San Francisco for her residency.

Which brings us to her wedding this past weekend. It was so good to be back in Chicago, my home city for 31 years and to see family I hadn't seen in at least a year or more. It was also great to get away from the humidity in Florida and enjoy some dry, cool fall weather. My niece was the most beautiful bride and her husband the most handsome groom.

Leslie and her Mom



The Beautiful Bride



Bride, Groom, Ted and Laura



Me and my sister Dolores



My brother Jim and I