Everything happens for a reason.

• A coupla margaritas - home

It was a Sunday morning and I was eating wheat toast with berry jam when I answered the phone call from my step-dad. Jim had always been straightforward and he said right away, "Um, your mother passed away this morning.", and that's all I remember him saying. I still had a piece of toast in my mouth and it sat there, damp and dead on my tongue. She was 54 years old and that was nine years ago today. My mom, Yvonne - pronounced "e-vonn" - a beautiful name - had been diagnosed with cancer a few years earlier and it had been removed and she had led what she thought to be a changed life for a few years, but in September 1999 it returned. My mom and Jim were in the process of moving from Orange County, CA to Oceanside, CA where they had planned to retire. In December 1999 Susan and I; my brother, Ken; and my sister, Michelle spent Christmas at their new house. My mom sat restricted to a reclining living room chair where she ate and slept the entire time we visited. We watched a lot of TV together and it was the first time I remember watching Emeril Lagasse, because she enjoyed watching it and mimicking the way he talked.

She was only able to eat ice chips, and I remember the freezer being full of bags of liquid that she would take intravenously. She wasn't able to enjoy Ken's "24 hour lasagna" which I named on the spot because it literally took him 24 hours to make it. The whole time he was preparing it he talked about how much everyone liked it, but I never understood why it took him so long to make it.

I don't think at any time during the trip I was thinking that she would not survive. I know that when we all went to Mass on Christmas Day we were all praying for her. I think she had wanted to go down to the waterfront on Christmas Day, but she was too tired by the time we got to do it. Maybe we all did go down. I'm not sure if we did or not, and these are the details I wish I could remember.

I remember Jim pulling us aside and telling us, in his straightforward, almost uncomfortable way, "The doctor says your mom has three months to live. I'd like her to have a picture of all of you." This declaration caught us all off-guard because, as bad as she looked, we all had faith that she would live, but we took the money and drove to Wal-Mart where he'd told us to go. The photographer was a large Hispanic woman who we all thought had just been released from prison because she had tattoos on her fingers and hands that looked suspiciously like inmate tattoos. The picture she took is shown above. I think you'd never know that thirty minutes prior we'd been told our mom had less than three months to live.

Even though we refused to believe it.

There are many dates to her death. The date I last saw her alive...a few days after Christmas when I had to fly back to Seattle and I said goodbye to her as she sat in that recliner, and I said "I'll see you later." but I'm not sure if I believed it. The date that I last talked to her on the phone...a few days before she died. Nine years ago today when she died at 4:30 am. The date of her funeral....in Hughson, CA where she had grown up. The date when we spread her ashes....six months later when Ken, Michelle, Jim and I rented a powerboat and sped out into the Pacific Ocean off the Oceanside coast. We each spread her ashes and then Jim dropped the urn into the ocean. I'm not sure why it surprised me that it sunk so fast. My aunt spread some of her ashes in Maui, Hawaii, where she was born. I have some of her ashes in a film canister, of all places, as do Ken and Michelle.

I was 31 years old and it was the first funeral I had ever been to.

I'm still struggling to figure out the reason.