Tuesday, September 22, 2009

My Mother and My Auntie Jo


This is a picture of my mother and her best friend, my Auntie Jo.

Mom had her first radiation treatment today for breast cancer, after a lumpectomy last month. She's had many back surgeries (not that she will stop or sit still...still) and the position they had her in for surgery sped up the deterioriation of the next disk. So, today she also went in for and MRI to prepare her for another possible surgery.

In the meantime, two and a half hours away, my Auntie Jo is dying of liver cancer. Last week we all thought we would lose her, this week she's fighting a tought fight. There is much to be done, paperwork and doctors visits, possible procedures, closing a business, ridding her life of forty years of stock built up in her floral business. But, Mom can't be with her best friend to help. So, I'm happily the substitute. I get the benefit of seeing Jo still (she was another one who wouldn't stop or sit still). I'd rather she was well and still running everything around her, but it's a blessing just to help her and show a little of the love she always showed to those around her. And, it's also a blessing to have her still enough to hear the stories that never had time to spill from her lips - family history, lost loves, first big jobs, college and stories of days spent with my mom. What wonderful women, wouldn't life be wonderful if we could keep them around forever.

Still, I can only imagine the trouble the two most beautiful women in the world got into when unsupervised by us children! A good thing they have a bunch of us around to keep them in line.

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