My mother died this morning

She was 79.

She fell and broke her hip on Friday night. Once we got her to the hospital it seemed like things were stabilized, but on Saturday afternoon she suffered a heart attack. The surgeons installed a couple of stents in the affected artery, but the damage was done. She had two more heart attacks later and, near the end, it was only the drugs that were keeping her with us.

She had suffered from pulmonary fibrosis for years and was on oxygen (when she was first diagnosed the doctors gave her 6 months to a year - she beat that by about 10 years). She was also diagnosed with diabetes a couple of years back - which she was managing well.

We weren't very close for most of my life, but had become so over the last 12 or so.

I think what I'll miss the most is her off-beat sense of humor. She was the queen of god-awful puns.