My cell phone does not work where I live in the bowels of rural Maine. My father tried to call me but I was home all day Saturday and not once did he call my home phone. Part of me is glad that I never got the message that my mother was dying. Now she is dead.

I feel very selfish that I wanted her to live long enough for me to be able to visit her in Florida one more time. My mother was in enormous pain and she was losing her mind. My mother's mind had been sharp until this last year. She suffered so much.

I can not begin to tell you how deep this pain goes into another world where I am a child again. My mother was alive. She read me stories and took my brother and me to an amusement park on those Friday nights when my father worked late. My favorite ride was the teacups.

My heart is broken. I have been spending the last year trying to put this heart together again and have been failing. This last year has been a major failure in this world. The only thing I seem to have succeeded in is humility.

I wonder how many people on this earth died on 4/3/11 with my mother. I wonder if my brother came to get her and now she is with everyone in a way that humans can not understand. She is with her mother and her son. She is no longer in agonizing pain in a crippled body shot through in so many ways.

I can't begin to tell you what I feel right now. Maybe you know a little bit of what I might say or write. The last time we talked on the phone, I lost the cell signal. I thought I would have a chance to talk to her again even though the calls were becoming more painful. I should have called back just to say, "I love you" one more time.