Thanks, Mom, for being with me in my PHS senior year football picture (our season record was 10-0). I miss you & the good memories. Leonard

All team sports information writes after finishing a life saving procedure for my mother at Johns Hopkins Hospital and returning to Phoebe Home on September 2, 2008, everyone was amazed at how Katie lived nearly another three months. She had a tight grip on life and didn't want to leave her children. During this time she was able to once again feel and see the change of seasons, the ending days of summer warmth, the crisp smell, sights & sounds of leaves blowing in the fall, and the beginning of a cold winter. Because of the love of family surrounding her by day and by night; she rebounded from her rapid decline with a spurt of energy during two months when Charlie Manuel’s mother died of a brief illness just before the MLB team Phillies won the National League Championship Series. And she heard Barack Obama’s surrogate mother died one day before the election. Katie held on through an entire baseball season and national election! She was very aware of loss and victory in many ways. On October 31st, when desperately attempting to obtain an absentee ballot, she turned to me and asked, “Who’s going to help you when you need it?” I say this not to be sentimental or to seek sympathies, but that she clearly knew what was going on around her. She will always be remembered by her family. On Noverber 22 she would have turned 82.

Happy Birthday, Mom!