Well - thankfully Ruthis took a turn for the better.  How is it that they can find a way to save a 99 year old whose quality of life is so poor and not you who were so much younger and so much to look forward to.   They say she is going to come home.   Diana asked for the hospital bed so at least you will be happy to know that it is out of the house and someone will use it.  

Ruthie isn't doing too well and I fear that her time with us is coming to an end.   She will be with you soon.   The signs are all there.   The catnaps throughout the day, the swollen legs, the low body temp. Ironically no fever.  I really hate doctors for using that as a guideline for someone's health.   She has phnemonia too.   How do I explain death again to our girls.   It is so unfair.  We will never be over losing you and my heart aches every day for all the things we will not share with you ever.

I tell Georgie to visit her but people always think there will be more time.   Sadly, there isn't.  How is there ever enough time to have with someone you love.    My dilema now is whether or not to bring them to the hospital to say goodbye.   They saw grandma in the nursing home and I am glad for that.    I wish that they could have said goodbye to you although you would have never wanted them to see you like that.   God I wish I could see you again.   I close my eyes and try to rember, I hold your shirt and try to smell the tiniest part of you but even that is almost gone now too.

I wish I could have said goodbye to you too but I thought you were getting better.   I never knew pain like this ever and my girls are way too young to loose you.   Nobody can come close to loving us as you did.  Not even me.   I hope that they will always remember you.

Happy Valentine's Day mom.  

You have my unending love, devotion and gratitude for all you sacrificed so that I can have a nice life.   I am trying to keep it together and will try to stop and smell the roses.  You would want that for me.   You always wanted the best for me.   I wanted more for you too but it didn't work out that way for you.   Sometimes I feel so guilty that I have the life you would have loved to have.    You gave so much love to everyone - I hope that you know how very much you were loved in return.  I never wanted you to feel sorry for yourself, if you only knew how much I really did feel sorry for you.   I just wanted to try to keep you going and motivated.   See how well that worked out....   All I can do is try to learn from my mistakes.  It won't help you but maybe it can help me protect my girls and my husband.    I am so sorry mom - for not fighting hard enough for you and for everything.

All this time Katie hasn't shed one tear for you.   It bothered me so much.  Don't get me wrong.  I don't want her to feel any pain at all but I just didn't understand how the girls can be so happy and not miss you more.  Someone once told me that they are fine because they have me.  But you did so much with them and for them.  They called you everyday if they didn't see you. 

I lay in bed every night and the tears just never seem to stop.  My 10 year old holds me in her arms and pats my back to tell me everything is going to be OK.  But is isn't.  Things are never going to be OK again.  How can I look into her big beautiful eyes and lie to her and tell her the same.   She has so much more heartache waiting for her and I can't protect either one of my girls from it.   We are all going to die one day and boys will break her heart and her best friends will betray her.  That is just life.  It isn't right that they have to learn it so young.

It feels like yesterday that I was in ICU talking with you when the doctor said you were on your way to getting strong enough to fight the cancer.   You looked so good that day and so hopeful.   How did things go so wrong so quickly.    I can't help being so angry at all of them as well as myself.

It has been 6 long months and I still don't understand.  I doubt I ever will.   I try not to write as much as I used to since it just makes me cry.  I can't cry anymore.  I look horrible, my eyes are always puffy, circles under them, my hair is gray and I gained so much weight.  You wouldn't be happy with me.  I can't go to exercise since my mind just keep going over what happened.  It is hard enough to get through the night w/o reliving that last fateful day over and over and over, replaying what the doctors were saying, watching your eyes rolling back in your head and having you not be able talk to me.   I keep trying different senerios to see what if.....  I need pills to help me sleep and sometimes they don't even work.   Sometimes reading a book helps keep my mind busy or a tv show.   God I hope this gets a little easier since I just don't want to hurt anymore.   It is just like having a hole in your heart and dispair beyond anyone's imagination.  We would talk 5, 6 times a day and you would be here 3, 4 days out of the week or more.   Maybe it would have been better if we moved far away, we wouldn't have been that close and this wouldn't hurt so much.   They say that it is better to have loved and lost then not to have loved at all.   I don't know if I believe that, it just hurts too much.   I used to be so opinionated about people who took their own lives but now I understand that they just don't want to be in pain anymore and they just need to hurt to go away.   I would never do anything like that but I understand alot better now is all.

We ordered a headstone for you even though I know that you wouldn;t want me to spend the money on it.  You would have wanted us to save it for a trip or something.   But I have to do it, you deserve that much, more actually but unfortunately that is all I can give you now.   So we didn't get the large one or the black marble one even though I now have doubts that I should have.  I still don't believe this is what I am doing now.    The days just go by without a phone call from you and I just don't understand why.   Why didn't you get a chance to spend more time with the girls. They need you so much....   There is a hole in our lives and in our hearts that will never be filled again.   You were everything to us and probably didn't even know it.  I am sorry if I never told you that.   You were always there whenever I needed you.   I need you now and your not here.    I tried to be there for you when you needed me but I failed you.   Even when they told me you may have cancer the thought of loosing you was never an option in my mind.    Nothing would happen to you.   You were so strong and I just always thought you would be here for me.   The doctors failed us terribly and I don't understand how they could have ignored our many complaints.   You didn't derserve that.   I will never know the outcome of their investigation but all they will get is a slap on the wrist or a fine.   It doens't seem right since we lost everything.   Their negligence caused us not to get you help sooner and they will never have to take responsibility for what they did.   Nobody cares, just me.   I feel like people don't even want to talk about you.   It bothers people when I bring you up. They don't say anything but I can tell they are uncomfortable.   I need to talk about you, I need to feel you and to remember you.   Even  George is getting fed up with me crying and I can tell he doesn't want to hear it anymore either.   Everything is a problem and nobody is helping me. The car, the house, the bonds.  Don't people know how hard this is.    Why can;t they just do what need to be done instead of passing it along to the next person.   I feel like I am drowing but sometimes get a chance to come up for air.   Everyone wants something from me.   I can't even help myself let alone anyone else but yet I say yes.  How can I say no.    I just want to say the hell with everyone and stay home with my family and ignore the rest of the world.   That isn't fair to them so I try to be social and do all the things that is expected of me.   I do have good friends and I am lucky in that sense.   I am so glad that Katie and Sara have eachother so that they will never have to feel this alone with all the problems and things that need to be taken care of.  There is just so much that my head spins.

Well I don't know how it happened but we did actually get some good news.   The biopsy George had was fine and I can breath a sigh of relief for once.   And I was wrong the cancer didn't spread to Diana back.  She has osteosporasis which is painful but not fatal.  So I guess I really don't know the face of death as I had thought.  So I am happy for these things but it still doesn't take the pain of what I lost away or the guilt that I will carry forever fo not doing more to save her.

Happy New Year...   Well I can't say much except for that I don't believe in coincendences.   Diana hasn't been well, first the cancer, then the hip pain,now back pain so much so that she is finaly in the hospital.    I really hope that I am not right but I fear that the cancer has mestastzed to her back  and that the hip was misdisgnoised.   I am not a doctor but I know first handed how people can go undiognoised and then it is too late.  I only hope that isn't true yet again.   How could that be happening again to my family.   My girls cannot loose another grandma.   I believe that I am stronger than my husband and I don't want him to feel even a fracture of the pain that I am feeling now and will for the rest of my life.  The only difference is that his dad is taking care of Diana.   I worry about him.   He is the caretaker and he will blame himself when her time comes.   I really do fear that is her fate.  I am better at pretending that I am fine and putting on a happy face.   George willl suffer forever but will also make us suffer as a result.  He has no idea of the emptyness and pain that he is going to feel.   I don't know how to help my girls since I cannot even help myself yet.  George is the one who keeps the life in me, if he looses that spirit I don't know how to be strong.  From what I have learned about cancer it doesn't take pity on anyone.  Sometimes for some reason it will give a few years for people to come to terms with the eventually horror of what will be but sometimes like my mom you don;t get that.   Diana is fortuante to have gone on the family trip and to have had a few years of life since her diognois.    How do we go on again.    I pray that I am wrong but it just seems to me that she isn't well, I can see it in her eyes and her face.   I have seen death take two people I loved and now I think I am seeing it again.   I never thought that I would know death by face but I seem to and each time it scares me and kills a part of me with them.   My only reason to keep going on is my girls and how do I stay positive for my husband when deep down I know that fate that awaits his mom.

I remember Grandma saying some superstition about a bird meaning death and would get upset when I would see then in front of the house.   So many times that I got over it.  Recently I just remembered the bird that was in our basement.   Maybe that was a sign of death to come.   I don't remember when it was here before grandma or after - either way, it did bring death.

I never thought I would even imagine a Christmas without you but here it is.   It is just so strange and unfair.  Last year was the first time that you were able to sleep here Christmas Eve and wake up to open presents with the girls.  It should have been the start of a new tradition instead we will never spend Christmas with you again.   You were taken away from us for some reason that I will never know.   I gave the girls presents from you and we hung a memorial ornament with your picture on our tree.   These should be the happiest years with my girls but all we have had is heartache the past few years.   I don't understand why some people skate through life without any sadness and some just get hammered over the head with it constantly.  I used to be so optomisitc and happy all the time - now I am just waiting for the next call with horrible news.   The girls got just about everything they wanted for Christmas.   It almost didn't happen without Santa's  biggest helper but I found your flashdrive and did the best I could.

I remember sitting here last Christmas at the table laughing, playing monopoly and such a nice time, little did I know it would be our last.  It was supposed to be the first of many more.  You bought us the new dining table with that in mind, how can it ever be the same.

I can't believe you are gone 5 months now.  It feels like yesterday but then it feels like a lifetime since I talked to you.  I equate my feeling of helplessness to someone who was driving a car in a fatal accident who walked away without a scratch.   I was driving the car and you died as a result.  No matter what anyone says, they can't change the facts.  The OPCinvestigator is looking into your case.  She won't call me anymore and will send a letter when their investigation is over.  I would be surprised if she finds that nobody was as fault.  I guess then the only one to blame is me.  I wish I had taken you to the hospital sooner, deep in my gut I knew you were sick but listened to the doctors who didn't think anything was serious til it was too late.

For so many years I was with you on Thanksgiving.  It is just so wierd not talking to you.  It is still so hard to understand what happened.   We had a different Thanksgiving this year and dinner at TGIFridays in the city.   I couldnt think about having a dinner here without you.  Thankfully George was around otherwise it would have been completely unbearable.

Diana had a Thanksgiving dinner the Sunda  prior since Carol was in from Colorado.  It brought back memories of the times you and grandma would come there to dinner on the holidays.  They talked about things that only family members can relate to about growing up and memories that they all share.  There is nobody to talk about the memories that we shared, nobody to tell my girls about the stories of when I was a little girl.  I used to cringe whenever you would bring things like that up, now I am so desperate to hear even one more story.  The Hopkins are a great family to be married to but they aren't the family I grew up with, you and grandma are and you are both gone now.   We are making our own memories with the girls but you should be part of those.  You were taken away from us way too soon and I can't help feeling that I could have done more to save you.  I tried so hard but I never thought you would be gone so soon without a chance to fight.

I keep trying to be thankful for all I still have but I have lost so much in losing you.

 I booked Disney since you promised Sara.  It won't be the same without you.   You always had it planned out so perfectly.   I can try, but I am not as good as you.

Grandma went on the roller coaster at Dutch Wonderland with George, Katie and Sara.

Well, I killed another fish.  Nippy is gone and now there aren't anymore.  Sara is so sad but we can get more fish, we can't replace you.

I remember calling you crying when the first two died.   You were going to come over at lunch time and get rid of them for me.   How many did I replace?   You would keep the girls out so that I had time to do the switch.   Now they have to accept that things, people, and fish die.  So sad, but that is life.

Sara wanted another fish.  So we now have Oreo and another one.   So far they made it through the night.  I am sure they won't last long.  Katie doesn't want any more since they will only die and it's too sad.

They tell me I can't keep the account with you open.  They want to erase your name off the checks, like you never even existed.  Why do they have to do that?   They can't just wipe your name off like that.   I told them that if they did then I wouldn't put the insurance money into the account.    Amazing how they kept it open then.  I hate people.  They are so mean in inconsiderate!

Well, I went to a psysic the other day.  Some people tell me that they can feel your presence.  I don't, and I really need to.  It was a small group of 15 people.  Out of the 15 only 3 didn't have someone come through.   That would be me.   I was so devestated, since I really needed to feel you.  I need to get some answers, I thought you would come to me, but you didn't.   I am so lonely without you.  I keep feeling that I could have done more, you would have.   The girls don't even fill that void in my heart.  So, I will go again in a few months.

George went on the golf outing with his brother and dad this weekend.  I missed you , since I would have had you come after work on Friday and stay and go to work from here like we did in the past.   I remember the one year that they went and we had mice in the house.   George set up the snap traps and left.  Of course, it went off and I called you up.  This thing was sqeaking and trying to get out and I was carring on like a nut!   Katie was a baby and probably asleep otherwise I would have left the house.   But of course you were there for me.  You came and got rid of that rodent.  Not only that, you got me an exterminator so that I would never had to experience that again.   You had mice in your own house but didn't get one for yourself, only for me.   Everything you did was for me.   I wish I could have told you how much I admired, respected and appreciated you.   Even when they told me that we had no choice and you would leave me.   I couldn't get the words out from between the tears.   My heart was breaking in two and I can't believe that I told you it was OK not to fight anymore.   I keep going back to that day to see how I could have done things differently.  Did I not fight for you hard enough?   They told me you would never be strong enough for the chemo and that you had cancer everywhere, but what if they were wrong.   I should have made them put the breathing tube in.  They said you may not come out of it, but what if you would have????   I keep tourting myself and I will never be at peace with this.   Too many unanswered questions, too many things that went wrong.

Sara was crying again tonight. She misses you so much and doesn't even know why she is crying. She was your little pal. Nobody sits and reads wifh her now, not even me. I tell her its ok to be sad and to cry. How can we not be when you were such a big part of our lives? It breaks my heart to see them so sad and missing you so terribly. I cannot even think about the holidays this year. It is unbearable to think of how much pain my heart will be in forever without you. I am lucky that I have my girls and George and will do my best not to ruin it for them. I don't know how I would be able to go on without them, especially now that you are gone.

Sara still has holes in both ears and some hearing loss still.   I wish you were here for me to talk to.  At first the dr said that the left ear hole closed.  I remember the last time they told us that and we were so excited and called you right away.   Even before we called George.  But then he looked further and it is still there.   How can I get through this without you.

Well, Katie's tooth finally fell out. She couldn't wait to tell George. You would have been the next petson she called, but your not here anymore, nor will you be there tomorrow when she is so excited if the tooth fairy leaves her money. She always called you first thing in the morning. You always answered, but you won't tomorrow.