Poppies and tulips

The tulips a gift of appreciation from a client.
The poppies a card from my mom to my daughter on her 17th birthday.

I have 47 years of memorabilia from my mommy in this house including memories of her living here with my daughters and me in sickness and in health.

It's very hard to watch a woman that looked 50ish at 69- 70 turn into someone
looking 80 - 90 in the course of less than a year. Six months time really.
Astonishing and so hard to believe.
Her illness was so compacted it's as if it were recorded in a zip file which just now is bursting open.
Thoughts and images I didn't have time for during the throes now come rushing back and flooding me over and over with the reality of what's actually happened.

I try to remind myself how my mom would have reacted to something like this.
She was always so practical.
She'd probably say, "Jo, I just couldn't make it."