Punk Rock Mommy has died....

I write those words through a blur of tears. Andrea Collins Smith was an incredible woman who blogged the last year of her life. You can read her final post here. She was so honest and so plain-spoken about a time that tends to get lost in a fog of sentimentality. It was as if she was taking us by the hand and saying, This is what will happen. This is the truth of it. When my mother died, as I sat with her during her last hours, I saw that there is no scary Other beyond breathing. I have said that that is the last lesson my mom taught me. And what Andrea taught me was that there is no scary Other in the process of a fatal illness. Both of these are gifts immeasurable, for freeing me of fear, they enable me to live my life more fully.