I was her surprise, the baby no one expected. It had been eight years since my brother was born, and my parents did not expect any more kids. My Mother called me her blessing. She spelled my name wrong, I was supposed to Erin (thank God that didn't happen) or maybe it was Errol... either way I became Eric only because that was what she wrote on the certificate. It took a while but I adjusted I think around six years old. My Mother was the kindest, sweetest person in my world. With love which she shared freely. I remember asking her, "Mom, what did you want to be when you were Little" she answered without a moments pause, "A Mother". That she was. She was a small woman, barely 5 feet tall, but worked for years in a physically demanding job in a children's clothing factory; not because she loved her career, but because that was what her family needed. She studied the sale paper every Thursday and shopped on Fridays as many as three different stores to get the best deals. We had lots of love in our home but never lots of money. She stretched every dollar but we never went hungry. My father called her Honey, always, she was that sweet. She had a lovely smile and very ticklish feet (the things you remember). I remember her learning how to drive and running into the gas pump. I remember her buying my school uniform pants too large at the beginning of the year and adjusting them over time two pair had to last the year. I remember my birthday dinners, fried chicken, my favorite; I remember her lemon meringue pies loved those, she could bake back then. All meat was well done, my father's preference I didn't know beef could be pink on he inside let alone red. Vegetables were boiled into submission. Well, I didn't starve. I remember her last years and the time she lived with us. I remember the love in her eyes when my niece brought her baby to see her. By then she had lost her words but the look on her face said so much words were not needed. I remember the night she died. I remember and Deborah telling me it was time let her go. I remember inhaling her last breath. She gave me life and she gave me love.

My mama passed away when I was very young, 6 years old, so I have very few first hand memories of her. Most of them are constructed from what people tell me about my mother, and as I've gotten older, I've realized that it is possible that people only share the best parts of her and that there is so much more to her that I will never truly know. Some of them are reconstructed around home videos and photos that I have found over the years. I have two very distinct memories of my own of my mother. They are random, and feel like tiny snippets of a movie that I replay in my head over and over again. > 1. Making lumpia shanghai with her in the kitchen of my childhood home. I remember sitting at the dinner table and begging her to let me help her cook. My stumbly childish hands could only handle one task in her mind - to pull apart the wrappers. She confidently tells me to do it slowly and carefully as to not rip the wrappers, but I am young and ambitious and end up ripping more than half of them. She never yells or gets frustrated, instead, she pulls out a new pack and tells me to keep going. > 2. Her hug. I used to think this was a fabricated memory, since everyone always tells me that my mom gave the best, warmest hugs on earth. But, I have one hug that is imprinted in my mind. I have no recollection of the situation that caused me to receive such a hug, I just remember her embrace, her warmth, the smell of her clean hair, and a flow of love emanating from her. I assume these hugs were a regular occurence for people in her life. I also have two stories that have been shared with me that I adore. > 1. My dad told me this story when I was an adult to convey how great my mother was. My mother passed from breast cancer. At one point, she was in remission and running around like normal, and then she landed back in the hospital, worst than ever. Through it all, she treated every nurse and doctor with respect, made them laugh, and talked them up. So much so, that when she passed, the entire staff from the floor gave my dad a card full of condolences and my mother told me dad that he had to thank everyone personally for their great work. This story has driven me throughout my adulthood to pay attention to every human connection I make. > 2. She LOVED birthdays. Not her own, everyone else's. All of our birthday parties were over the top and she NEVER forgot anyone's birthday - always giving them a call or card on their big day and making them feel special. I've heard many versions of this story growing up and it has greatly impacted my love of birthdays. I often go "too far" (or what my friends CLAIM is too far) with birthdays. I wonder if this is just who I am or if I do it because I want to be just like her.

My mom was one of the most caring, compassionate people I’ve ever known. Her love for you was just so apparent, so visceral. One of my last conversations with her when she was in hospice was at 4 a.m. as my dad and I were giving her her next dose of pain meds. Maybe it was the morphine, but she was in a rare state of lucidity. She said that she hoped that we didn’t get whatever bug she had, because it was pretty nasty. She wasn’t certain of much, but she still wanted to make sure that we were okay. My mom slept most of the 11 days that she was home on hospice, slowed down by the swelling and the tumors in her brain. But one night, we had two groups of friends come over to just play music for her and for us. We laughed and cried and sang as we sat circled around my mom, lying asleep in her hospital bed in the middle of the living room. Towards the end of the night, my dad picked up the guitar. He played a song that he used to play back in his college days, back when he met my mom. As he started to sing, her eyes popped open and she just stared at him, taking him in. In spite of everything in her body working to slow her down, she knew that she couldn’t miss this moment. Before my mom came home on hospice, I spent one night in the hospital with her (we all were lucky enough to get a chance to have a sleepover). We both woke up in the middle of the night when the nurse came in to check her vitals. I was exhausted and could have easily gone back to bed. But instead I stayed up with her and sat on her bed and made dumb jokes. I don’t remember what we talked about. I just remember feeling so loved by her. It’s nothing concrete, nothing I could pin down. Just a truth for me to carry deep inside of me. As I tried to figure out what to write, I kept coming back to these stories of her at the end of her life. I was frustrated, wanting to remember her as she lived, not simply as she died. But sharing these moments is sharing her. Maybe even sharing her at her most elemental, her truest self. I worry that I’m reducing her by leaving out her laugh, her love of reading, her passion for the environment, her faith, so much more. But I’m never going to have all of the right words, the right stories to say what my mom meant to me. She means everything to me.