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    Dear Elizabeth
    Dear Elizabeth
    Dear Elizabeth
    Ebook75 pages1 hour

    Dear Elizabeth

    By Mary E. Lally

    ()

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    About this ebook


    My experience with my mother gave me the strength to go through the emotional trauma that occurs after a death. In our Irish Catholic fishbowl, we had the family fight, the wake, the family fight, the burial, then finally the family no longer on speaking terms. It also gave me the strength to let her go. I did everything within my own ability to make it okay for her. It was the least I could do for the woman who bore me, raised me, and forgave me. I could ask for no greater gift than the one I could carry with me. I learned never to give up hope. Even in the darkest hours, faith holds the light. Once you open your eyes, the rest is cake.

    I'm not sure if she ever really accepted the fact that she was dying. Sometimes I thought she did and other times not. My accepting it, looking at what was happening right here now, was the most difficult fragment of my journey with my mother. Like her, sometimes I did look at reality and sometimes I didn't. Those times it was just too painful. I wouldn't trade a lifetime for what I had with my mother that year. What she did for herself was best. What she did for me was awesome. This book is meant to revere the woman that she was, the woman she became in the end and the mother she will always be to me. Elizabeth was an extraordinary woman with strength and wisdom beyond her own belief. This book is to honor her memory and her beautiful soul.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTrafford Publishing
    Release dateMar 10, 2004
    ISBN9781412221481
    Dear Elizabeth
    Author

    Mary E. Lally

    Mary Elizabeth Lally was born and raised on Long Island, New York. She is from a large family that was linked together through her beautiful mother, Elizabeth Lally. Mary has faced many challenges in life but one of the greatest was when her mother was diagnosed with cancer for the second time. Mary graduated with her Master's degree in Social Work from Stony Brook University and has gone on to be an advocate in her community for the elderly and disabled population.

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      Book preview

      Dear Elizabeth - Mary E. Lally

      © Copyright 2004 Mary E. Lally.

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

      Note for Librarians: a cataloguing record for this book that includes Dewey Decimal Classification and US Library of Congress numbers is available from the Library and Archives of Canada. The complete cataloguing record can be obtained from their online database at:

      www.collectionscanada.ca/amicus/index-e.html

      ISBN 1-4120-2218-5

      ISBN: 978-1-4122-2148-1 (ebook)

      Image303.EPS

      Offices in Canada, USA, Ireland, UK and Spain

      This book was published on-demand in cooperation with Trafford Publishing. On-demand

      publishing is a unique process and service of making a book available for retail sale to the

      public taking advantage of on-demand manufacturing and Internet marketing. On-demand

      publishing includes promotions, retail sales, manufacturing, order fulfilment, accounting and

      collecting royalties on behalf of the author.

      Book sales for North America and international:

      Trafford Publishing, 6E—2333 Government St.,

      Victoria, BC V8T 4P4 CANADA

      phone 250 383 6864 (toll-free 1 888 232 4444)

      fax 250 383 6804; email to orders@trafford.com

      Book sales in Europe:

      Trafford Publishing (υκ) Ltd., Enterprise House, Wistaston Road Business Centre, Wistaston

      Road, Crewe, Cheshire cwi 7RP UNITED KINGDOM

      phone 01270 251 396 (local rate 0845 230 9601)

      facsimile 01270 254 983; orders.uk@trafford.com

      Order online at:

      www.trafford.com/robots/04-0046.html

      10    9    8    7    6    5    4    3

      "We can not do great things ~ only small things with

      great love"

      Mother Theresa

      Mary Lally has written a beautiful tribute to her mother in Dear Elizabeth. Many of us will experience the death of a loved one but it takes a very rare individual to be able to put that period of time into words. Dear Elizabeth will touch not only your heart but down to the center of your soul. Mary has managed to do something that very few of us will be ever capable of. She opens up her heart and her life to share with you the experience in losing her mother to cancer. Their story is a rare look into the last few months that two extraordinary women were able to share. It is full of love but more importantly, full of laughter, right up until the end of their journey together here on earth. Dear Elizabeth is a love letter, one of the purest in nature. It is a gift to her mother, the woman that raised her and loved her the only way she knew how. Many of us have run away from such an experience to shield our hearts from the feelings that one goes through when losing someone you love. Mary teaches us that the greatest gift you can give someone is just to be there, holding them tightly, right until their last breath. It is the only real glimpse we get into the gates of heaven.

      Elizabeth gave Mary the gift of life, and in turn, Mary gave Elizabeth the gift of unconditional love in death.

      In Love,

      Mary Sierra

      Acknowledgments

      9781412022187_B3.pdf

      This correspondence of sorts is dedicated to Elizabeth for obvious reasons, then too I would like to dedicate it to the people in my life who stayed in spite of me. For Lorrie who freed me from myself, to Judy who had a dream and lives it. To Anita, who never left me by the way side and to Barbara who keeps me from falling by the way side. Many thoughts to Diane who can win an argument without saying a word. Without her guidance I’d still be arguing and lost. To the Porter’s of Northport who never threw a stone, and to gra who taught me how to give. To Agnes, where ever she may be. To Camille and Marian who were always near by from the beginning. To my sister Helen and my brother Sean, the two who stayed.

      To my sister-in-law Terry, who rose to the occasion towering in strength, when others cowered in grief. To my brother Mike and his wife Kathy, who in spite of family feud were always there when the chips were down. To Mary and Elma who where there for me without question, holding my broken heart with their silent, peaceful presence. That moment will live within me through eternity. To Mike Simon, who believed in me with laughter and without judgment. To Dr. Winter and Dr. Radansky who saved my life. And to those of you who have selected to read Dear Elizabeth, I hope that somewhere in the words I have chosen to write that you have found some small piece of solace. If you have, please, pass it on to others, so that they too might know that we are never really left alone in our time of what seems to be insurmountable darkness. Those whom we have loved who have moved on to greater triumphs are only but a whisper away. All you have to do is listen to know they are there….

      For Connie & Jim Mckillop

      And

      Jamie, Christen, Sean, David, Colin, Paula,

      Kathleen, Peter, Meg, Kelly, Vito, Regina & Brian

      9781412022187_B3.pdf

      may the road rise up to

      meet you,

      may the wind be always at

      your back

      may the sun shine warm

      upon you face,

      the rains fall soft upon

      your fields and,

      until we meet again, may

      God hold you in

      the Palm of His hand……

      9781412022187_B3.pdf

      I

      Dear Elizabeth,

      I am writing Elizabeth and not mom with great caution. You can kill me for calling you that. I mean no disrespect to you, quite the contrary. It is Christmas Day; some one hundred thirty odd days have passed since you went away. It seems like yesterday. This day like many others, are firsts in my life. They are not easy, I am uneasy and clumsy and I miss you terribly. So I thought I’d write to you. No, I don’t have a job yet but I will get one. I spend my days busy trying to keep busy.

      When you first left, there was no time to mourn. There was no quiet, no peace. I don’t know what you were thinking when you chose who you chose to execute your will. Your choice was in poor judgment. I’m sorry mom, but if you were here, you’d kill him. His judgment borders on the ridiculous, somewhat of a joke. Considering that all you had of any value was your house, your children and grandchildren. I call him the executioner of the will. It appears he is just that, an executioner. In one fell swoop; he was able to destroy what little hope there was that

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