The Last Rodeo — Memories of Mama

Mama and five-year-old me, pleased with my gap toothed grin.

Brain cancer killed Mama after two long years of treatment. It wasn’t her first rodeo — she beat ovarian cancer nine years earlier.

Mama and I joked that she never got colds or the flu, only aggressive cancers. Even as her cognitive abilities and motor skills were squeezed out by the glioblastoma, she retained her darkly goofy sense of humor and her big smile until a couple of days before she died. Then…