" As a child I was very sick, in and out of hospitals, once at 11 I was in the Omaha Childrens hospital for months on a liquid diet. I wanted potato chips so bad and one night as my Mother visited me she left and brought back from the vending machine a small bag of potato chips. I ate them very slowly as we talked and to this day I remember the wonderful taste of those chips! "

" This is the 20th Mother`s Day I have spent without my mother. One memory I will always carry is of shopping for a pair of crystal wine glasses with my father each year for her gift.

The most amazing memory was also one of the most simple. One rainy Spring night when I was about twelve she came into my room, woke me up and handed me my red flowered raincoat. I slipped it on over my nightshirt and she slipped on her gray trenchcoat. We splashed in puddles together outside our house in Indian Hills.

The water was almost warm, our hair was getting wet, and we stomped and danced.

I never asked her what that was all about, and I was very tired at school the next day, but it was the most amazing memory of my childhood -- and my childhood was completely awesome with vacations and experiences one would normally have only if from a wealthy family, which I was not.

When we vacationed near the Gulf of Mexico she would also make Somethings in the sand -- sculptures from rocks and shells, sticks and seaweed. "

" My dad had to work so my mom took us kids fishing. We caught some nice catfish and took them home to eat. Catfish are pretty hardy, as we soon found out, and refuse to just quickly die from lack of oxygen, so when my mom started to clean one on newspapers on the kitchen floor it starting flopping around something fierce. As us kids laughed and laughed mom started whacking the fish on the top of its head with a hammer. The harder she hit the more animated the fish became, and the more we laughed the more determined she was that this bottom-feeder would not get the better of her. When she finally succeeded and the fish was cleaned there was fish slime, blood, and tiny pieces of newspaper all over the kitchen, on mom, and on us spectators. Our stomachs hurt so much from laughing we almost couldn't eat what was probably the best tasting catfish I've ever had. "