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Anything Else Forum

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My mother died today.

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AngelHeartsBuckeyes's picture
April 9, 2015 at 7:49am
134 Comments

My mother died this morning. She was a Buckeye fan, yes, but more so because she was from Ohio - she didn't know a 2nd down from a second grade teacher. She did however love me. And since I love the Buckeyes and live in Florida, she would often buy me little tOSU trinkets and send them down. One time she called me up and sounded so excited to tell me to keep am eye on the mail. Sure enough I got a little goodie box with this and that. Funny thing is that in there among the Buckeye playing cards and last year's Christmas ornaments (no doubt on clearance sale given it was July or something) were these NC State plastic picnic plates. Bless her heart. They were red and said 'State' so they ended up in the goodie box. I never had the heart to tell her - not even when she visited and we picnic-ed with those same plates. (Besides, it always reminded me of breaking Phillips River's little heart).

In my life I've been called a strong woman. Maybe true, maybe not, but if so, my mother was a superhero in comparison. Given just one year to live five years ago with advanced small cell carcinoma of the lungs and lymph nodes, she survived it's eventual return after chemo, the removal of a lung (which tore a giant hole in her artery and almost took her life right then), its return again in her stomach last year. She went into hospice in May of 2014 and we were told she wouldn't see the summer. In October of 2014 she fell and broke her shoulder and her hip. We were told she wouldn't make it thru the surgery. Then they said she wouldn't see another Christmas.

But she saw all those things. And them some. Despite being told time and time again that her life was over, she refused to accept that. Though she weighed just 70lbs, she had a fight of herculean proportions.

But even the superheros among us stumble upon a day in which hanging up the Cape takes the most strength of all. For my mother that day was today.

If you're wondering why I'm sharing this with you, I'm honestly not quite sure. Maybe because without really knowing it, you all have been a part of my everyday life for the better part of a decade and I just feel compelled to share. Maybe, and most probably, it's because I'm sitting here in my mother's living room terrified to be alone with just my thoughts. I am my mother's daughter, but I am no Hercules. No, not like her.

I held her hand as she passed. My brother and my sister were there. It was peaceful and beautiful and gut wrenching and surreal - all the things it was supposed to be. I felt her strength in those last moments more than in any hospital room or chemo chair. She was brave and stubborn and pig headed and never wrong and 27 more things and then 27 more. But most of all, she was strength personified. And she was mine.

I love you momma.

Louise M. Caudill
5/27/1938 - 4/9/2015

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