Good-bye, Mom

My Mom died yesterday.  Her name was Schelby Jean Leakey Holliday.  She was born on December 15, 1941 and died at the age of 71.  She died from the side effects of Progressive Multifocal Leukoencecephalopathy (PML)--a very aggressive virus that is usually only seen in advanced AIDS patients.  But, my Mom had been on immunosuppressant drugs for about 20 years because of a kidney problem she had and her body just couldn't fight off the virus.  Basically, it's a brain-eating virus and that's what it did--it diminished her capabilities, took away all of her motor and cognitive skills and killed her.

This is when I was about a year old and she was holding me.  She had severe health problems her entire life.  She was born sickly, with a collapsed lung and my Grandma was told by the doctors that she had to make her cry for over an hour every day so it would keep her lung inflated!  She developed scoliosis of the spine and had to have several back surgeries and spent most of her high school life in a body cast from her neck to her knees.  The doctors told her never to attempt having children, but my Mom was stubborn! (I obviously come by it naturally :)  And, she went ahead and had 4 children--I was the first.


I know this is a blog about cooking and GF recipes and such, but I don't feel that a thing like this can be ignored or allowed to pass by without being marked somehow.  My Mom and I didn't always have the greatest relationship but I was always grateful to her for risking her life to give me mine.

This picture was taken in 1996, right before I moved with my family to Italy.  Mom was taking the immunosuppressant drugs then and you can see how puffy she was because of them. 




My Mom was not much of a cook, really.  I remember some good rice pudding and bread pudding that she would make on a cold winter's night for dinner.  I remember peanut butter and honey sandwiches on toast and popcorn in a darkened living room on a Saturday afternoon as we would watch old Charlie Chan movies.  I remember the time she decided to make homemade yogurt and burned it to a crisp and the house smelled for a week!!  I remember most of all Sunday afternoon's after church when we would come home and make Campbell's tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.  We always stood side by side at the stove and cooked that together.  One time, when I was engaged, my soon-to-be husband came up behind us and leaned over and kissed my Mom on the neck (Imagine my surprise!) We were wearing our hair the same then and he didn't look before he leaped, so to speak.  That was the most memorable grilled cheese Sunday that I remember :)


Mom was opposed to most anything that could even be remotely considered healthy and she wasn't too happy with me when I decided to become a Naturopath and embrace a healthy life.  She was hooked on hot dogs and Twinkies and anything else that was manufactured and full of additives.  So, needless to say, our cooking styles are widely different!  I do try to eat as healthy a diet as I can stomach (even with my aversion to vegetables :)  but I have to agree with Mom---sometimes there's nothing better than a good, old-fashioned, additive-rich, all-American hot dog!


Because of my faith in Jesus Christ, I know that my Mom is in a better place now and she's finally relieved from the pain that has tortured her throughout her entire life.  She spent the last 15 or 20 years devoted to doing family history and searching out her ancestors.  She was actually a lot better with dead people than with live ones....I think she would have made a wonderful medical examiner!  Anyhoo, she's meeting all those people now and I'm sure she's hip-deep in verifying information with them and berating some of them for not writing correct dates on the backs of pictures or for not keeping good records so they could be found.  Go get 'em, Mom!

This is the last picture I had taken with my parents and my sister, Lisa, about 3 years ago.  This is before the virus was active and started taking her down.  RIP, Mom...