Georgia On My Mind

I met Georgia in 1980 at Officer Candidate School. You can imagine the number of memories packed into almost 28 years of friendship. Besides OCS, we shared an apartment together for a while, vacationed in Hawaii, and were bridesmaids in eachother's wedding - one week apart, 21 years ago.

Georgia gave me one of her first guitars and put together a songbook just for me. She showed me a few basic chords and how to play them, and off I went. That guitar was my stress-reliever through OCS and nursing school. Now it's something that MFD and I share.

Georgia battled ovarian cancer for over a decade and she died Saturday. She was only 49. Georgia has been an inspiration to me, and I'm sure many others, as she went through surgery and chemo. She was realistic - she knew she would die from this cancer - but she was always laughing and joking and bringing smiles to faces.

Her main goal was to live to see her daughter's high school graduation. She not only attended, she was the guest speaker. That was a year and a half ago.

I haven't seen her in quite a while, and the last time I spoke with her was only for a few minutes. Of course she's been in pain for quite some time, and it's all been wearing her down. She's been tired and ready for a long while, but she kept going the best she could as long as she could.

I'm very greatful for the friendship we shared and I will miss that. But she left a lot of memories and examples that I will never forget.

Thanks for the memories, Georgia, and rest in peace.

Love and hugs,
Flo

P.S. KSA and I are having a fabulous time with HollyB and JPG, and I get to meet Phlegm this evening, so I promise to post something happy soon!