When Mom was waiting to be discharged from the ward during one of her earliest hospital stays, a nurse asked Mom whether she would miss her. Mom replied, “I won’t miss you, but I will remember you.”

Few people understood what she really meant with that but I knew she said that because she didn’t want to go back to the hospital and if she had said that she missed the nurses, she feared that she would return. So while she didn’t go to school, Mom learned enough English to be able to communicate, and in this case, very clearly.

This is my little tribute to a warrior, a braveheart, a comedian, and my dearest Mom.