Dear Mom,
You truly are amazing! Thursday and we were still in the dark and in the cold house, but you were still doing fine. The other day that we didn't go to Evergreen Walk was Friday. My friend Sharan invited us to come over again. This time they were going to be home. I figured you wouldn't mind since we had already been over there once. You sort of remembered the house. Sharan was so great! She also invited me to bring over any laundry that we might have. That was a huge blessing, since I had been having you wear double pj's, when you had an accident that was two pairs of pj's that had to go in the laundry. Thank goodness, I think you only had two accidents, but I didn't know what I was going to do if you had any more. I was trying to figure out what I was going to do about laundry. How silly of me to worry, when the Lord already knew what we needed, and had it taken care of. It was also great because Thursday late afternoon you had another type of accident that we kept contained as much as possible. It didn't get on your clothes, but since you had been keeping your gloves on those got messed up. The only other things that were affected were the bathroom rugs. It was rough for me to handle, but I was able to somehow handle it with the Lord's help. He was so good. So what a blessing to be able to do laundry on Friday! We brought Bella with us again, and her children kept Bella entertained while we took our showers. After our showers, we still had to wait for the clothes, so we were able to sit, relax, watch TV, and fellowship with Sharan. Her daughter made us some hot chocolate. You loved it...loved it so much that they made you another cup. After that cup you had the nerve to ask me if I had finished mine, I told you you could have it. You tried to pretend that you didn't, but it didn't take much convincing for you to drink the rest of mine. Hey, as long as you were happy. :) Saturday and Sunday were a little more of the same. The only thing that was different was that when we came home from Evergreen Walk on Sunday, we found out that our electricity was back on. It had been a week and a day, and we finally had our electricity back. I was shocked that you did so well that whole time...being home, being cold, being in the dark. And even continuing to have your ice cream each night in the freezing cold, but it never quite seemed to bother you much. We stuck it out and made it through, who knew?!
I couldn't help but to think of all the things you have been through in your life, getting rheumatic fever as a teenager, having rheumatoid arthritis, having to live in a convalescent home for part of that time, having to go to night school to finish and graduate High school, having a heart murmur, risking your health just to have me because your heart wasn't supposed to be strong enough, having two knee replacements on the same knee, finding out you had breast cancer, having a lumpectomy, then having about 20 lymph nodes removed only a week or two later, going through chemo and radiation, surviving breast cancer for the past 4 or 5 years, dealing with sciatic and arthritis pain, and now dealing with Alzheimers. And now here we were in a freezing cold house and you handled it like a champ. That's just who you are...an amazing, strong woman! I'm proud to be your daughter! Love you!