When IBM closed the Boca Raton plant, my brother Doug and I had to take transfers…him to Austin, me to Raleigh. My parents tearfully waved goodbye twice within the space of a month as their kids and grandkids moved far away. Goodbye to cookouts, swimming and coloring…just the two of them rolling around our old 4BR 2BA Boca house.
To keep them in the loop, I’d send them batches of pix with comments written on the back. FB popped up a memory: On a Mother’s Day ten years ago, such a batch arrived along with a card. Doug and I also went halves on some flowers. My mom…according to my dad…looked at each picture, read the back, and commented…she was never in a rush for such things. She read her cards and got a little verklemp. They watched a little TV, then turned out the light. Just another night.
Only it wasn’t. The next morning, my dad couldn’t wake her. He called 911…rushed to Boca Hospital. Massive stroke, nothing we can do…so sorry. Pop said don’t come yet…let’s wait to see what happens. Five days later, they held the phone up to her ear in her hospital bed as she lay comatose. Didn’t know if she could hear–they say that hearing is the last sense to go–but I told her I loved her, she’d been an awesome mom, if she had to go, I understood. Twenty minutes later, they got a call….she had stepped into eternity, into the loving arms of Jesus. Oh man, that was a rough day.
But it gives me comfort that her last thoughts were that she was treasured, she was remembered, she was appreciated. Love ya, Ma 
My little corner of the world 