I just buried my Mama.....

I lost my Mama on November 3.....the saddest day of my life. 
It felt like I was floating above all the activities last week.....that I wasn't really there.  That I was just having a bad dream and would wake soon.....not to happen.
Mama was 86 years old and sick.  She had COPD....a terrible condition that sucks the breath out of you.  Years of smoking and living in a dusty, chemical filled farm town will do that  to you.  I can remember her holding the flag while the crop dusters spewed their toxic poision over the fields...she would mark the rows for the pilot.  She often suffered with pleurisy (inflammation of the pleural lining around the lung).  Several years ago she had half of a lung removed due to hemoptysis from bronchiectasis ( a condition that causes your airways to become damaged so bad they can not carry air in and out of your lungs).  She lived a long full life in spite of the condition that caused her much discomfort.  The last year her health rapidly declined.  She went from being my precious, fun loving mother - to being attached to an oxygen machine and deteriorating before our eyes.  My last visit was the end of September...she didn't know who I was...BUT SHE DID TELL ME THAT SHE HAD A DAUGHTER NAMED MARTHA, TOO....HER DAUGHTER WAS MISS TENNESSEE!!!  I love that she though I was beautiful! 
Mama was beautiful.  Pictures of her in her youth are stunning.  She and my Dad have been married 66  years this past June.  Their marriage brought three daughters...my oldest sister, Pat...then June..finally ME!   They had the kind of marriage that you just don't find anymore...a true commitment to each other.   Don't get me wrong...thier marriage was FAR from fairytale!  They each had plenty of reasons to WALK...several times!  They each had issues that were not pretty...but they were committed to the marriage and it lasted the test of time....I am so thankful for that.
Mother was generous to a fault!  She would give anyone the clothes off her back....she always slipped me a few dollars when I went home..and loved being able to pay for everything when we were out together. 
She loved her Grandchildren so much.....Will and Michael received a shoebox full of candy EVERY HALLOWEEN until they finished COLLEGE!!!  Yes, she would buy candy and box it up..Daddy would take it and mail it!  They loved it so much!
I loved my Mama.....I am thankful for all the years we had.....I look forward to our wonderful reunion....when the roll is called up yonder.