February 1st, 2008 at 11:00 am, my mother-in-law died. She had been diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer in September of 2006. When diagnosed she was told she would not live to see that Christmas. She battled cancer for sixteen months. On Monday the 28th she had less than 15% of her liver functioning. The doctors say that you cannot live with less than 20%. But she willed herself to live for three more days, long enough to hold the hands of each of her three children one last time before dieing. She could not speak, the struggle to stay alive consumed all of her remaining energy, but could only lay there squeezing their hands in hers. She cried, not for her own impending death but for the pain it would cause.
She was a light in this world, and I do not say that in a casual way. Every life she touched, she touched deeply. She helped me believe in myself, that I could be more than a ditch-digger. She pushed me to go to college, to finish with an English degree. She told her daughter, my wife, that she could be anything she wanted. But, most importantly, she said it was okay for her to be an artist. We burried her in Iowa, during a snowstorm that dropped 14 inches of snow on the state. And people still drove for hours to show their respect for this woman. People came from Virginia, from North Dakota, and from Texas. People left work early, took time off, drove for 19 hours with no break, and braved dangerous weather to remember the life of this woman.
She was a nurse, a lover, a wife, a mother, a sister, and a daughter, but the most accurate description of her is the simplest: she was the best.
And I love her dearly. The world is a darker and more terrible place without her.
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