Trip to Virginia City

I Love this picture it is one of my favorites of us together. After we found out that Mandy had a GBM in the speech area of her brain we wanted to do something that was fun for her before she started treatments. We took her up the mountain to the mining town of Virginia City and invited the rest of the family to go with us. We took the old train ride up the mountain and got to see all the places that they mined. At one point we went into a tunnel and it was completely blacked out and we could not see our hands in front of our faces. I thought how fun would it be to take a picture and so I pulled my camera out of my pocket and said to Mandy "Hey smile when I count to three because I am going to take our picture". I was not sure that she heard me because the noise level in the tunnel was twenty times louder but I felt her lean toward me. I yelled "one, two, three" and I snapped this picture. I was truly excited when I got home and seen how great it was. It captures my baby girl very well. Funny that I kept my sun glasses on in the tunnel but I lost my ability to think straight when they told me what she had.
It was a fun day and Mandy really tried to make everyone feel comfortable with her and she made everyone smile. When we got this punch in the gut of a diagnosis I was instantly breathless and spent the next two years and two months not able to breath. My baby girl was a really special woman. She was always trying to make others happy and comfortable and she really succeeded. For some reason people tend to forsake those whom have been handed the C word. Now I am not saying everyone but it makes you wonder when your own family does not rally around you but total strangers and your friends do. I have learned that even though you want something to be so does not make it happen. I was looking for my family to be there for me like the way I have been there for them. My heart was crushed when they were not but I have accepted this fact today and realized that they gave her and my family what they could and in the only way they could and that it was me expecting more from them. (But you always want a show of support even if it is a phone call once in a while)