“My mom was a fun loving, caring and giving woman. She embroidered blankets for The Linus Group, which gives blankets to babies and children in need and also gives to the Indian reservations. That was my mom’s passion. She loved to play games like Scrabble, Yahtzee, Dominoes, Rummy and Monopoly. She loved to go to auctions and thrift stores. Mom had been through hell and back. She was a survivor of breast cancer. She had it in 1991 and had a mastectomy with no chemo or radiation, was cancer free. She had two open heart surgeries and lots of other surgeries. The worst was when my family was in a car wreck on my mom and dad’s wedding anniversary in September. My sister was alive at the scene but after they took the steering wheel off she died, my nephew was ok just had bruises, mom was in terrible shape. She was in the hospital and nursing home all together for about 5 months. She was told she would never walk again, but mom, the tough lady she was, did walk. That was over 9 years ago. She wanted to donate her whole body because she wanted to help people even in death. She thought maybe they could find a cure for some disease or just help people with her body and maybe they could learn new things. My mom’s death was a shock. She went in for an angiogram and went into respiratory failure. They put her on a ventilator and she was coherent and we thought she would come out of the hospital soon. She was also on dialysis too. So the combination of taking her off the ventilator and dialysis she ended up throwing a blood clot which perforated her bowl and she went into septic shock and her organs shut down, there was no hope. She had an awesome, caring doctor, he was so spiritual and mom died with dignity in February. Thank you for letting me share my mom with you.” –Rachelle M.