Just going along.

Surviving, not thriving. I miss my mom. I want my mommy. I can't stand it that she's not here. Nothing will make it better except time, I guess. This is my mom in the mid 1940's, early '50's.

Haven't been doing much, really. Went to the Missouri Botanical Garden last weekend with a friend. I was totally not in the mood. It was awesome. Then we went to Shaw's Nature preserve...it was really awesome....a prairie geek like me got to walk on a real, high quality prairie...with 20 or so different native prairie plants per square meter.

I work in the greenhouse at school..it's a no brainer and my boss is very, very cool. Academia freaks me out...it's so petty and ridiculous.

School is good..I got an A in Watercolor, and a C in shrub ID. I'm still waiting for my Hort 101 grade. The math class the teacher gave me an incomplete in, I'll make up the work as the summer goes on, and take my punishment like a man, dammit.

Picked up my painting from the gallery today, they waived the storage fee. It'll look nice on my wall.

RIP, mom

I love you, I really do, x 10, and I miss you. You're the hole in my life that will always be empty from here to the end of my life.

My mother died on 4/20.

My father called me on the morning of 4/16 to let me know she wasn't going to pull out of this one...my sister was down there very early on the 17th. I got there on the 17th...but later in the day.

We at least got a couple of days with her. She was in hospice. Hospice is wonderful. I can't say enough good about it.

My sister and I spent the morning of the 20th by her bedside talking to her(she was unconcious), just conversing with her, telling her it was okay to go, we'd be fine, then we left to do some running around...my dad went down to be with her in the afternoon. We had been counting her breathing..it went from one breath every 39 seconds to 1 breath every 12 seconds, to one breath a second. Dad came home from visiting her, and we asked how it was going, and he said "lousy." Ten minutes after he came home, hospice called to say she had passed away. She waited for my dad to leave.

Me and my sis went to hospice...and I really wish I hadn't looked at her after she passed. Her skin was yellow/grey/blue and her mouth was open. This is the last picture I have in my head of my mother.