Welcome!

On February 7th, 2005, my mom was diagnosed with lung cancer. The next day we celebrated her 67th birthday in the hospital. On February 9th, 2005, my mom was told that the cancer was in her bones and also in her brain.

For someone else, this would have been a reason to give up. For my mom, it was a reason to get out of bed each day. She didn’t know how many days she had left and she wasn’t going to let a silly thing like cancer stop her from living her life. In the six months after her diagnosis, she got up every day, took a shower and “put on her face” - at the minimum a bit of blush, a smidge of gloss, and a touch of mascara.

That is until the day I got the call. She had no lashes to extend. No eyebrows either. Her startling blue eyes were empty. I told her a million times that weekend that someone thought she was beautiful.

She gave herself a day to feel self-pity before picking up the eyebrow pencil and the fake lashes and finding her beauty again.

My gift to you is my mom’s courage to be beautiful. Vanity is usually such an ugly word but vanity gave my mom the courage to live – to continue her life as she had – going to dinner with friends, the theater, and proudly standing up for me on my wedding day.

On July 21st, 2005, just 19 days after my wedding, my mom gracefully passed away.

Thank you for being beautiful and courageous and for allowing me to honor my mom’s memory. --Kim

If you know someone who is beautifully and courageously fighting cancer, and would like to tell them you think they are beautiful, please contact me to have a Beautiful Gift Bag sent to them.
carolslashes@yahoo.com
858.775.9318

364 Days Ago

364 days ago today I thought that somehow, just somehow my mom would wake up in the hospital room and tell me that she was going to be okay. Instead, she rubbed my hand with her thumb in her palliative-care cocktailed state trying somehow to get a message to me and my sister. She was ready to go and be with my dad.

I can't believe it's been a year. I just can't believe that the time passed quickly. As a friend told me last week about his own mother who recently passed away - "Not a day goes by that I don't think of her. And I guess that's a good thing, because if I wasn't thinking about her that meant that something was wrong...I would be in serious trouble if somehow I stopped missing her".

As I lay awake last night, husband sleeping somewhat soundly to my left, the larger of the two dogs curled up between us, all I could think was "I miss her. I miss her. I miss her."

To Have A Beautiful Gift Bag Sent...

Simply send me the name and address of the person you know who is courageously battling cancer...

...Be sure to include how you would like the enclosure card to read (To and From).

At this point, I am not accepting any donations...word of mouth is all I need to continue spreading my mom's love.

Decorated Eyes