(Untitled)

[springa]

It was almost exactly 1 year ago that Mom was admitted to the hospital for what turned out to be unsuccessful chemotherapy.  Everyone hoped for a cure, but in fact she lived for only another four months.  There was less than six months between when the first symptoms showed up and her passing

Comments

[zanzara]

I have no doubt you give your mother great joy. I think she smiles every time you realize that, as well as every time you realize what a successful person you are.

I love it that you're keeping the gardens up. That's truly love for her.

[springa]

Well, most of the gardens that we have now are perennials, so in a sense the plants do most of the work themselves, although I have planted a few new things. The biggest problem is usually all of the other plants that have found the garden beds to be a congenial home and which must be unceremoniously evicted if the intended residents are to develop to their full potential.

On the issue of being a successful person, in my more down moments I have a difficult time envisioning myself - a 31 year old perpetually single guy still living at home with his dad and working only part time - as being successful under any reasonable definition of that word. However, I usually have enough perspective to see that this is only part of the story, and that I have been successful in some ways, and that mentally beating up on myself as a matter of habit is almost guaranteed to make me less successful, not more.