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In her garden of flowers, dear Clara was in her element. She also loved the vegetable garden which we'd sometimes help to plant, especially the children. She'd let them eat carrots right out of the patch after just a quick wiping off with her apron.

When they would help her pick the strawberries she'd chastise them for plucking and eating the ripe berries. You knew she only meant about half of it. In other words, half the berries for the children, and the other half for her kitchen.

Every time the kids would come home from Grandma's house in the summer, they would excitedly tell of her gardening.

The flowers I mentioned earlier were a show of color. Many hybrid Iris of variegated colors bloomed proudly for us to view in awe: royal purples with white lacy edges, blue ones, red, pink, any color possible bloomed in that border of Iris surrounding the vegetables.

The peony bushes would bloom on cue in May with bright hot pink, light pink or white blooms. They were always on cue for Memorial Day when at least once we accompanied her to her mother's grave with fresh blooms.

We lost Clara, my husband's mother, in 1991. She was a brittle diabetic and over a span of about ten years the disease took her over. She developed heart problems, diabetic neuritis and blindness. Each was treated and another debilitating illness or condition from the process of having lived so long with diabetes would invade.

I remember her coming over to the house one day with her blood pressure cuff and its attached stethoscope. She wanted me to check her blood pressure. Being a nurse, she knew I could easily handle the task and her anxiety was apparent. Her blood pressure was well over 200 on the systolic (high number) and over 100 on the diastolic (lower number). Her pulse was racing too fast for me to count. I called the local clinic immediately not knowing if they would prefer to see her there first as the hospital was fifteen miles away. They did have me bring her in, and after checking her and deciding that she was suffering from an extremely rapid heart rate. I took her the fifteen miles to the emergency room. I hoped to get her there before she started to fibrillate.

She'd been on a diuretic called Lasix to reduce fluid build up in her tissues, and on a medication to slow and strengthen her heart rate called Lanoxin. She admitted to running out a month or so earlier and not realizing she should refill the prescription. Personally, I think she did, but was low on funds and didn't want

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