April 24, 1928  - September 7, 2005

My mother lost her 5 year battle against ovarian cancer on September 7, 2005. I’ll never forget the day she was finally diagnosed. We were sitting in the doctor’s conference room and he came in and told us she had ovarian cancer. We were all devastated but my Mother looked straight ahead and said well at least now I can start working on beating this thing. After a year of trying to find out what was wrong and being misdiagnosed, my Mother had finally gotten the answer she had searched for. The next five years were spent trying to stay ahead of this cancer and buy as much time together as possible.

My mother persevered and she never let us see any signs of defeat. She fought this personal war with everything she had and she taught us a lot along the way. She was truly an activist and she would be delighted to know that we are still fighting for a cure.

She was the kindest person I’ll ever know. During those last few weeks before her death, she was only worried about we were doing and she asked the social worker from Hospice to check on her family after she was gone.

I have big shoes to fill to even come close to being the person she was and I will forever be grateful for having such a wonderful Mom.