Today was my late mother's birthday.  Betty Jo was a strong fierce little general and when she was diagnosed with Stage 4 Liver cancer two years ago, she looked death in the face and did not appear to flinch.  She saw life as a road, that we walk down together.  When my grandmother passed away in 2000, my mother told me that in life there are some people who will walk all the way down the road with you and there are others who are only supposed to or, sometimes only willing, to walk part of the way to the end of the road. People are not perfect. My mama certainly wasn't but she would walk all the way down the road with her loved ones. No matter what. She brought her full humanity to the road to share with us and I personally am the better for being able to accept her as an imperfect human in need of God's love.

When my step-dad and I were taking care of mama, she wanted to tell me good-bye and I told her that it wasn't good-bye. It was simply that we had reached a fork in the road and she needed to go one way for now and that our roads would meet up again one day.  We got to the fork in the road in three short months.

Before she became very ill, she made a profession of faith in Jesus and in her last days she kept saying, "I will meet you at the white gate." It gives me so much comfort to know that she is in a place of beauty and love and that I will see her again.  It will be interesting to see if the Eastern Gate is white.

God Bless You and Keep You Jo Jo the Tiger! (Until our roads come together once again.)

I love you, mama!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzotqbzQ17Y