The Art of Remembering: My Parents

The Recuerda Mi Corazon blog is hosting an October meme called The Art of Remembering.  You can read more about it here.  In Rebecca's words, the purpose of this Sunday exercise is to "share our most personal memories of loved ones and their forever places in our hearts.  As we take time to do the sacred work of remembering we are filled with the presence of all those now gone that once filled our days with love and comfort."  Previously I posted a memory about my father ( here) and my mother (here). Today, I want to share a personal memory about the two of them together and their eternal love.
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                                                                                                                      A Love for All Eternity
Several weeks before my mother passed away, I spent about a week at her hospital bedside. I remember when her demeanor shifted from talking about seeing her grandchildren graduate from college and instead asking if we would be okay once she was gone.  One morning, she said she had been talking to my father, who had passed away the previous year.  She said that he was doing well but he said he missed her "because no one can take care of me the way you do."  And I knew it was true. My mother took great care of my father all through his life.  And he took care of her.  During the last years of my father's life, as he battled the cancer that he knew would kill him, he made a plan.  He created a little red book in which he noted all the monthly household expenses which my mother would face, and he patiently explained to his children where the money was to take care of his wife after he was gone. My mother and father took care of each other in life and expressed their love in the face of death.  I am certain they are caring for each other still. And I pledge to remember that love.