Feburary 8, 2012 @ 3:15 p.m.

Today marks 3 years that my mother Lupe Rios passed away and left behind a 1 son, 3 daughters, 8 grand-children and 5 great-grandchildren. It doesn't seem real and it doesn't seem like I actually experienced my mother's passing.

I was talking with my sister's today since we spent the day together and my older sister mentioned how it seemed that mom would wake up and everything would be ok and I was feeling the exact same thing as I sat in the hospital room with mom. Looking at her I saw her sleeping and breathing, even if with help from the respirator, but I kept thinking in my mind, ok she's taking a nap and will wake up in a bit and we can go home. But as God's will would have it she didn't wake up to come home with us, she woke up to go home with Ama and Apa.

My mother was removed from "life support" and left us a very short time thereafter. She was surrounded by several people that she loved and they loved her as well. Mother use to always say "you know who your family and friends are by the visitors you get while you're in the hospital or come to your funeral."

Well, mom was very well loved by many even from far away from people she had never met in person. I know that if everyone that she had befriended online could have been there that day they would have been.

The Rosary service was packed beyond what I could have imagined, some people that had not met her but met her daughters and respected us enough to come show their support and condolences.

I sit many a night listening to her CD's she left behind that she would sit up at night for hours making and listen to herself while chatting with her online friends. As I listen I see her next to me "echando gritos" and smiling ear to ear.

I have so so so many memories of her and for that I am so ever thankful. Our trips to the movies, concerts, six flags, family dinners, hospital visits with our children, even if just minor she would accompany if she could. She loved breakfast anytime of the day, Mariachi music, casinos, road trips, but more than anything she loved life.

In our school days she was a seamstress and loved to sew. She would make our school clothes for us and we wore them proudly and rec'd several compliments as well. Even the day before she had her leg amputated, she made me a nice little western vest.

Mom knew no boundaries with her disabilities, never met a stranger and never complained.

She lived to laugh and she laughed to live.