MY MOTHER | HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

My mother...She is 66 years old. She has been married for 45 years. She has five children and eight grandchildren. She loves to shop. She loves to dance. She loves to cook almost as much as she loves to eat. She is a lover of anything Filipino. She loves to wear red lipstick. She is my mother, Rose.

Many years ago, my mother was diagnosed with multiple myeloma -a cancer of the plasma cells in the bone marrow. When the cancer progressed my parents came back to the states after years of retirement in the Philippines for cancer treatment. For two years she suffered through multiple rounds of chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant. During her last visit to the Philippines, she lost both her legs from the complications of the chemotherapy. She remains in the PI because she is unable to make the trip back to the states.

To celebrate Mother's Day, I'm bustin' out the red lipstick!