Hi there, everyone.

I haven't been insanely post-whoring lately, and I even lost some creds as a proofreader; but since November 1st, this has been quite a roller-coaster ride.

I never discussed this here, and only told two people I think, though reading Krista's, Sharon's or Steve's blogs, I'm definitely not alone.

My mom died on November 9th.

She was diagnosed with breast cancer right before Christmas 2001. At that time, she was 55, walked and trekked a lot, worked too... I'll sum it up though: surgeries, chemotherapies, radiotherapy... Basically she never had more than three months of "relief". She always kept some hope of recovery. Well, let's say becoming a widow last year didn't help much.

It started getting really bad ten months ago, she had to have spine surgery. She never really got better, and it became difficult to walk. Since then, she got tons of support from friends and relatives, so she could stay at home rather than go to the hospital. There was always someone at least to spend the night there. We've had some fun times with some of her friends I had not seen much since I'd left home 13 years ago.

The last Sunday of October, I was in charge. Moving was getting really difficult, and she used a walking frame. But just walking to the bathroom had become an odyssey, so she used the commode next to her bed in the living room.

She'd had some outside nursing help three times a day since the middle of October, so with someone in the evening, it was all covered. But when this began, she'd also gotten the results from her latest exams, and the radiotherapy had not had any effect. She had a tumor in her brain that didn't want to wane. I think this is when she lost hope.

On Tuesday, my sister came to visit on her way to a family vacation, but she went only as far as getting her children to other relatives. We could no longer leave her alone for two or three hours at a time. With her doctor (a super nice, caring and patient lady), we managed to get some "home hospital" solution, with medical care on top of the other ones.

I'll spare you the details of the next three days, but the commode had become an obsession, and my older sister and I had to help out the whole way. Plus my mom's speech patterns got worse and worse, as she seemed to think she had spoken a whole sentence when she'd said "I think that