Sometimes it’s easy to feel like we are being swept down the river of life and we have no choice but to swim along. The only time we really step out of that stream is when someone is born, gets sick or dies.

Today is my mother’s 78th birthday. I wish so much that I could call her or give her a hug. She passed away two weeks shy of her 70th birthday from a disease called Multiple Systems Atrophy, It is a rare neurodegenerative disease with no remission and no cure. Watching her decline and being powerless to stop it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever experienced.