"I am healthy and filled with love and gratitude."

My mom with my son about a month before her pancreatic cancer diagnosis.

"I am healthy and filled with love and gratitude."

This was a note my mom had me write for her when she was first admitted to the hospital. We taped it to the metal post that held her IV fluids. And it stayed with her from treatment centers, to family vacations and finally to the Hospice House eleven months later.

Until the end, my mom was thankful - thankful for her time with us, for her ability to grow, for her life as a mother, a daughter, a wife, an entrepreneur, a friend and an American. She touched so many people during her 64 years; whether she made us think, made us angry or lifted us up, she really made an impact.

For 11 months, she knowingly fought pancreatic cancer. She had plans to take her granddaughters to Prince Edward Island and her "favorite daughter" to Ireland. It was often thoughts and dreams of doing things for and with family and friends that permeated her existence because life was her love and relationships were her joy.

Just days before she died, we were sitting in Hospice and her expression changed from sort of relaxed to terrified.

"Mom, what are you scared of?" I asked.

"I don't want to go through this again," was her reply. She wasn't scared of dying, she was scared of reincarnating without having rid her body of the cancer. It was painful, tiring and surely wan't the way she wanted to go.

When I was a teenager, the most annoying thing happened: my mom started listening to self-improvement tapes! It's almost like the American way of Buddhism; we make a choice to be the best person we can be today and work towards enlightenment through self-awareness. But talk about frustrating for a teenager! The last thing I wanted to hear was "it's all about your attitude" or "be thankful for what you have" or, like she said to me when she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, "sometimes what seems like the worst thing that can happen will turn out to be the best."

When I was 18, she took me to a UYO (Understanding Yourself and Others) weekend where I broke through my toxic habit of attracting soul-sucking friends. When I was 19, she gifted me a "Simple Abundance Journal of Gratitude" which still dons my shelf. As the years went on, I became her student and we grew together. I got over the teenage angst and embraced the good that she wanted to share with me.

I am so thankful. Still very angry and sad that I don't have my mother to guide me as I mother my own boys, but thankful. Thankful that with her passing, my relationship with my father strengthened. There's my silver lining and I didn't have to look far.

"Always be hopeful. Always keep learning." That is the advice she left for us. So I challenge you to find the silver lining, to always have faith in yourself, to always be thankful and to always keep growing. There is no time to waste.

And, Mom, you did it. No more worries, the cancer is gone.

In fond and loving memory of my mother, Sharon K. Wagner. 9/5/1944 - 3/13/2009.