The "Lucy" Coin

In April 2000 my mother was in the hospital. We were told that she was at the end of her life. (At 58 it was an all too short life. She fought and got out of the hospital and lived another 6 productive months)

Friends and family were coming to the hospital to say goodbye and to celebrate with her while they still could. There were a lot of young children coming in with my cousins to see Auntie Susan and we tried to mask how we talked in regards to her condition.

One day there were a few children under the age of 10 in the room. My mother sat up in the bed and made quite a load moan. When I asked her if she was OK and she said that the catheter was really bothering her. One of the children asked her what was wrong and she told her “My Lucy hurts.” From that moment on Lucy has become part of our families’ funny vernacular.

Fast forward a few days and I had gone home to shower after being at the hospital for 3 days. When I came back I stopped to get my mom some magazines and lottery scratch tickets. She read the magazines and scratched the tickets and drifted off to sleep. Some people came by an hour or so later and when she went to stand to hug them the coin she scratched the tickets with fell, One of those golden Sacagawea dollars, on the floor. My aunt said “Did that coin come out of your Lucy?” Well we laughed so hard for quite a while at this very sad time in our life.

I went out a purchased a bunch of these dollar coins and gave them to my family at Christmas 2000. My mom passed 6 week earlier. We laughed and cried at the same time.