I walk into the ICU with Annie and suddenly I'm aware of how quiet everything is. Franny's room is dark with eight or so people gathered around it. She looks at me and says, "Jess, you're home. I'm so happy you made it home."
Always a mum, till the quiet end. She's bald and thin from the chemo but she still looks beautiful-not warm and lively like I'm used to, but beautiful none the less.
She would drive Annie and I to the mall when we were sixteen in a red Avalon that Annie inherited. In one such occasion around Easter, we were talking about how ridiculous Cadbury Cream Eggs were.
"It's a Cadbury fetus!" Annie joked.
Franny started giggling.
"Did you just say, 'CADBURY PENIS?!'" she asked before breaking out into raucous laughter. She had this high pitched squeak that made her cute in a motherly way.
"Imagine a Cadbury penis," she said. "Those would fly off the shelves!"
In later years, she would invite me over for the holidays after I had to work. I always had a plate full of several desert items waiting for me. When I arrived, I was always greeted with a hug and a kiss on the cheek from Franny. I felt more at home with her than most of my own kin.
When Annie texted me to let her know her mother died Monday morning, I cried for a few reasons. One being I lost my own mother two years ago, almost to the day and it reminded me of that. Another reason I cried was because I knew what Annie was going through and there isn't a whole lot I could do about it.
The third reason I cried was because Franny is irreplaceable and I'm sure the world is running out of people like that since all of them keep dying.
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