Difficult few days

I wrote this last night, but wasn't quite ready to post. I feel better doing it tonight.

I've been going back and forth about if this would be appropriate to blog, but since it is something that has forever affected us, I thought I should share. Especially for the few of you out there who aren't co-workers or family and might not know:
Pete's mom, Pamela Lynn Crawford, passed away Sunday afternoon. She had been aggressively battling cancer for almost two years, but once it came back for the fifth time in her spine and liver, it was time to stop treatment and make her comfortable.
Pete's younger sister Audrey got married in December, and one of Pam's goals had been to make it to that event. She did, looking happy and strong. After that it seems her body didn't have much more to give.
This evening the family held a memorial service for Pam in a small chapel at a local church, expecting a few coworkers and old friends to come. So many people came -several drove in from CHICAGO - that Pete and others were scrambling to find extra chairs! By the start of the service, it was standing room only, and the walls were lined from front to back with people from all walks of life who had been touched by Pete's mom in some way: coworkers from her days at the Continuing Education section of the Ford plant, fellow members of her Storytellers group, old friends from Illinois, and many, many friends from Jefferson Community Technical College, where she worked for the last five years as a counselor, academic adviser, and faculty secretary.
What was a sad event became just what it should have - a celebration of a life well-lived.