As this letter reaches you, you may be with or have been with your
family as it is the day after Christmas. We were with our family too as
we spent the holiday with daughter Belynda and her family.

After living with Huntington’s Chorea Disease for 30 years, my
mother passed away peacefully this morning at 11:30 am. The last 10
years had been very difficult for her. She had completely lost the
ability to talk, walk and feed herself. She became ill with pneumonia
last February and was never the same after that. She was hospitalized
briefly in August and we thought then that the end had come. She ended
up surviving 4 more months. The last 3 weeks have been horrid. She kept
losing more and more weight. She entered hospice level care not too
long ago when her weight was dangerously low. She weighed 47 pounds
last Friday and 44 yesterday. She is finally at rest.

I thank you all for going on this journey with me. For some of you, 
it’s a shared journey that you have dealt with your family members and
this disease. For others, it was a journey that began when  we were but
children in the same little town growing up. Yet others came in  
later…or sooner than others. Each of you have made this journey 
precious knowing that I was not alone and I could count on each of you
for your help.       Here are the arrangements that we've made:

I will leave here, hubby and kids in tow, for the long drive up there on
Thursday the 3rd of January. The burial will be private on Friday, then
the public memorial service Saturday afternoon at the same funeral
home, same room, as we had dad's exactly one week less than 8 years
ago.  Then, I'll leave there Sunday hopefully around 8 am which
should put us back here between 10 and midnight depending on how many
times we have to stop now that we have all 3 of the boys potty trained.
Kids will start back to school Monday January 7, 2008.

I'll try and pop in here as much as I can and update you. I'm sure sometime before I leave my
phone will stop ringing and I can come in here and post some more.

Thank you all for your continued prayers. Pray into our finances as well as I
have no idea how we are going to afford going there again.