Hi Pat & Gardener Girl -- Thank you for being with me here on this.

Oh, yess, I've already told mom that altho it is selfish, I just wouldn't be able to get through life right now without her. That I might become a bag lady if she weren't here. Now, if I am Tough Old Broad, as September has told me, my mom is the Queen of the Amazon Ladies, a female John Waye, a Duchess.

I was once blathering away about my college angst, during the late 60s. I always felt that she was tuning me out -- never gave what I wanted. She turned to me and said: "You come from the let it all hang out generation. I come from the stiff upper lip generation. You want me to respect your vaues. Now I am asking you to respect mine."

Meaning "shut up" about all this stuff. Now, that was cold and disappointing. But it also was very smart and insightful of her. It let me understand where her boundary was and the nature of the respect she wanted.

I think she's softened on this as she's gotten older. I will be checking in on her. I'd been planning on going up north in July, and now I definitely will follow through. Also will keep tabs on her through my cousin. And pray that she will GET OFF the ciggies.

I definitely will be asking her, if she doesn't, if she wants to spend her last days wheeling an oxygen tank around with her and breathng through a nose clip. If she wants to bet her opinion that it's sinuses against the physician's, that it's emphysema, with the loser's prize being the Big Tank. If she really enjoys cigarettes that much. For she always claims that she is [b]not[/i] addicted. She smokes because she enjoys it and can quit any time.

At Christmas, when she was blowing smoke in my face and my lungs were filling up -- and she offered me a humidifier instead of stopping the smoke -- I burst out -- "You love your cigarettes more than you love your children." I didn't mean to say that, and it hurt her. But I imagine that it is a factor in all that she's thinking and feeling right now.

Thank you, again, all, for staying with me as I work my way through this issue.