You don't know what you've got till' it's gone.

I just got a call from my girlfriend Dena. Mom Davis died last night from colon cancer, she was 76.

Mom Davis was literally my second mom and my second home when my dad and his depression got to be too much. I didn't complain to them about him but I always felt loved and comforted there. I didn't have to make "brownie points" with Mom Davis. She accepted and loved me for who I was. The Davis's included me in family trips to thier cabin in PA and some of my best memories are of our adventures there.

Funny enough my most vivid memory of Mom was that she could cook real fried chicken in a cast iron dutch oven and always served welches grape juice with every meal because of the anti-oxidant properties long before it was fashionable. She gardened and took vitamins. She read Mother Earth News and had long hair that she always wore in a messy bun.

She hugged you every time she saw you and was always glad to see you. She was non-judgemental. I was always "good enough".

I will miss her very much and am sorry I have not seen her for quite a few years as she lived in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

My very first road trip was to visit the Davis family when I drove from my first Pennsic in 1980 all the way to Arkansas alone. I was young and fearless then. I'm still a bit fearless but now I'm respectable with a family and can't go off on road trips so often.

Maybe Paul and I should pack up and take a road trip. We could chaulk it up for a Geography lesson!

Everyone should hug thier second mom's today.