If you want to read these in sequence:
2020-09-23: The Night’s Watch
2020-09-25: Waking Up From Death
2020-09-28: The Last Goodbyes
My mother passed away peacefully at home this morning around 5:30 am, Eastern Time. She’d been in home hospice for the past week. She’d been living at home with my sister since 2009, where she moved after our father passed away. She was 89 years old.
She was born with cerebral palsy. Despite her disability, she worked as a legal secretary, typing, and taking shorthand dictation, for much of her life. Taking after her mother, she enjoyed sewing throughout most of her life. In retirement, she took up weaving, and created many beautiful works which her family continues to enjoy.
She and our father were active volunteers in many community organizations everywhere they lived, including various community theater groups in Florida and New York, and the Mineral and Lapidary Museum of Henderson County in North Carolina, where they retired.
She was charming, and made friends easily. Stories abound of how she befriended strangers, whether they be people waiting on line with her, wrong numbers at our home, or truckers on the Long Island Expressway. She will be dearly missed by all who knew her.
No immediate service or memorial is planned. In keeping with her wishes, her remains will be cremated, to be scattered with those of her husband at a future date. The family will plan an online celebration of life sometime in the future.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be sent to your state or local chapter of United Cerebral Palsy (UCP), https://ucp.org/find-us/
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2020-09-28: The Last Goodbyes
2020-09-25: Waking Up From Death
2020-09-23: The Night’s Watch
Dear Chris: I came across the memorial for your mother because I had mentioned you in one of my online classes. I'm always moved by the writing that people leave for others about the people closest to them. Thank you, and may your mother and father enjoy the next places on their journey.