Karma?

today marks the 18th year of losing my mother. mom had worked for a plastic molding company when she was in her early 20's. her & dad had divorced & she had 2 girls to raise. trying to have a life, pay bills & put food on the table was quite a task for a single woman. apparently this company paid pretty good money for those days. after about 10 years with that company mom found a better job with yet another plastic molding company as a union steward. and had another daughter. regardless of her position she still inhaled the particles floating around in the factory. we're talking early 60's here. nobody really thought about the long time damage to your lungs when the company didn't even warn you of the dangers. so nobody was required to wear a breathing apparatus for protection of any sort. needless to say, mom died from lung damage. she developed emphazema & asthma (sp?) becoming very susceptable to anything that came through. she caught cold after cold & pneumonia was no stranger to her poor body. she used to say to me, 'lin, i just have no energy.' i didn't know what to do to help my sick mom. i just told her how much i loved her & wished i could take it all away.
although, mom was on every medication she could take nothing seemed to really help her bad spells. someone would have to rush her to the hospital every now & then just because she would take a spell where she just could not catch her breath. the last 5 years of her life mom had to wheel a little oxygen tank behind her everywhere she went. even from room to room. she just progressively got worse.
on this day, 18 years ago, she took a bad spell. ranie, my baby sister was the one driving her to the hospital. along the expressway not more than 4 miles from the hospital mom quit breathing. ranie didn't know what to do except to pull over & try to make mommy breathe again. a car stopped & called 911 & everyone tried to administer cpr on mom. finally, the ambulance arrived, rushed mom to the hospital but declared her dead upon arrival.
when i went into the hospital room where she layed i couldn't believe she wasn't alive. she looked so natural. until i got closer & saw the hole that they cut in her throat to perform a trachyotomy. i could feel that she wasn't exuding any air. her chest wasn't moving no matter how hard i stared. my mom was gone.
everyone had lost the best thing we ever had in our lives. even if they didn't realize it yet. i knew. my sisters knew. but some people hadn't realized yet just how wonderful my mom was. she was a foster parent to so many kids that i've lost count. all of them are better for having known her. she taught love, respect & understanding. she worked hard & she always found time to share herself with anyone that came within contact of her. her funeral was huge. i still have contact with most of them. everyone always tells me how much they miss my mother.
the strangest thing is i always held a little contempt towards my step father for the loss of my mom. i felt like if he had worked harder to take better care of her she could have had more time to recuperate from her hard life. maybe this last part is karma.
my step father had this little dog that he saved from death. he's had him about 5 years & the dog had been hit & left for dead. my step dad took him to the vet & they managed to save his life. later we found out that nobody wanted the dog. he was already old & his owner didn't really take care of him but at least fed him until he died. the dog was mostly just fending for himself & wound up running the road. he had probably had the best years of his life with my stepdad. that dog died today too.
my stepdad called me today crying like a baby. he said, 'lin, i loved that dog better than i love myself.' wonder if he remembers what today is.