This holiday season is killing me because it insists on turning into 2015, the saddest one I have ever endured. By Thanksgiving, Bobby had been told to bring in hospice and that he would inevitably die. I went over every weekday so he would never be alone, I got him whatever he could keep down for lunch and just generally did what he wanted me to until Ellie got home from school where she was teaching English as a second language. He was not experiencing much pain because we had been told to give him as much morphine as he wanted. However, it made him sleep most of the time. His stepmother was wonderful, bringing food and doing whatever seemed helpful. We forged a friendship that has lasted. I came to know how much she loved him and that he had two mothers who loved him unconditionally. He asked me every day when his sister, Linda would be here and every day I told him Christmas Eve. When she came, I had cooked a big meal for family, and I turned off all the burners and told my grandaughter Laura to get the food on the table. Linda and I immediately went to be with Bobby. By that time he was in a coma but I know that he could hear some things. We sat by him until Linda went to my house to change into pajamas. By that time we knew he did not have long but Linda and he were extraordinarily close and she planned to sleep by his bed. I told him how much I loved him and that I would be distraught without him and that I would care for his family as best I could. He stopped breathing at 8:34 Christmas Eve night. I kept my promise by deeding the paid for house of mine that they were living in to his wife. We were not church people but I knew that Bobby would want a minister to preside and Jeremy stepped in and conducted the service that Bobby had arranged himself. Two of his friends spoke and he had selected the music. His very best friend, Lane, was too grief stricken to even attempt it. I thought the service was beautiful and there was a dove release afterward. It was easy to believe that the white doves were carrying his spirit to what ever after life holds for one. This, my friends, was the greatest grief of my life. I never broke down but it took a supreme effort not to scream and cry and tear my hair. Linda was nine years older than Bobby and she kept saying, "He was our baby, Mom" and he was. We thought Ellie and the girls would want to come home with us but she had made arrangements for a friend to come and be her support. I asked for a dirty tee shirt of his and I have it and it still smells like a pine forest and sometimes I take it out of the box and hold it and inhale. It is the closest I will ever be to my son again.