10 Years Ago Today

Ten years ago today my mother passed away. She died at the age of 56 from pancreatic cancer.

She was diagnosed in July 1999 following a bout with jaundice. She had been complaining of stomach pains since March, but visits to the doctor had been fruitless.

In August 1999, she had a pancreaticoduodenectomy, also known as a Whipple surgery. This is one of, if not the most, extensive surgery a person can have. Essentially they go in and take out all of your innards, remove the cancer, and put everything back.

My mother lived almost a year following the surgery.

Mom married in October at the age of 18 and I was born the following June. She was an office worker at a custom metal precision fabricating shop in Salem until she retired in the mid-1990s.

She could sew and do things with crafts that I still envy to this day. She was a great decorator and had a good eye for color and depth. She liked flowers, particularly iris, and she liked to garden except for when it became more like work than fun. She canned food, made pickles and killed chickens - the things a farmer's wife did.

I do not think she particularly liked living on the farm, but that is where my father wanted to be and so she was there. It was a long drive from Fincastle to Salem every day and she would leave at 7 a.m. and return at 6 p.m.: a long day by any standard. As she grew older the drive wore on her, particularly in bad weather.

She went back to college in her 30s, taking accounting and other classes, but did not finish her degree. Aerobics took up two of her evenings; she was dedicated to going out to the high school to get her exercise.

My father had a Top-40 band and she went with him on weekends to watch the group play. Later she sometimes joined him on stage for a few songs. In particular I remember hearing my parents sing together.

She liked to sing when she worked and after I learned to play guitar she encouraged me to continue to play even when others were not as helpful.

Mom was religious but not so that you would know it. We did not attend church but there were times I would catch her praying. In 1975 she was praying aloud as she drove like a crazed woman toward Roanoke Memorial. My father had backed a tractor over my brother. She begged God to keep her son alive. He did.

She loved Myrtle Beach and enjoyed vacationing there. After she retired she spent a great deal of time at North Myrtle, where she made friends and seemed to enjoy having the kids gone. After my nephew was born, she doted on him and was a loving grandmother. She did not live to see her granddaughter.

Fifty-six is very young. She still had things to do.

It's been a decade now. I hope she is at peace.

My mother.