Remembering my mom one year ago...on this day....

As I sat in the hospital with my mom one year ago today, I read her Harry potter as she lay quietly attached to machines that were helping her breath. I painted her toes, clipped her nails, brushed her hair into an updo bun. I cried, I told her how sorry i was that this was happening to her, I told her I loved her and that she was a great mama who taught us how to be strong. I told her that I wanted her to get better but understood if she was tired of fighting. I helped the nurses suction her mouth, helped them change the pads on her bed, put a blanket next to her head to keep her neck from being scrunched up, settled her each time she became alert but unaware of what was happening. Two days earlier was the last time she was awake, the last time I heard her voice tell me "Have a good night baby, I love you". Even though those days were so long and so hard, I would do anything to go back.