A few weeks my Mom passed away. She was never a sweet little old lady. Oh, occasionally she offered up a kind smile, but she was more of a no-nonsense gal. And she certainly wasn’t little. Not her physical stature. Not her personality. And positively not in the way she approached life. That’s why we were shocked when her nurse practitioner told us Mom’s kidneys were failing and she only had a short time to live. The diagnosis caught us off guard. Not our mother. The strongest woman we ever knew.