I have always said, “life and death” but never “death and life” until my mother died. Now, I think of it in this order—death and life. I did not want to be there when she died. I thought it would be so hard and so painful and maybe too much for me to deal with. But it wasn’t. It was beautiful, sweet, and almost too easy. One minute she was taking slow, breaths and the next . . .never came. She slipped away from us but it didn’t even feel like she was gone. Her shell, her body, wasn’t working, but her . . .my mother she was with us. She was free from all the hard—and she’d had a hard life full of health challenges. It felt joyful. I know this cannot always be the case, but for her, I imagined her flying around us, young, healthy, strong, emotionally whole, and full of the truth that she had lived this amazing life and it was over and she didn’t have to hurt or worry or fear anymore. Of course we cried. So so many tears. A migraine full of tears, but I would say most of the