Ann Smith died today around 12:40 in the morning.

Sunday had been a rough day for her - Dad could tell that the pain meds weren't doing much for her. After giving her another dose for the night and giving her a sip of water, Dad held her hand. She'd been twitching a lot and halucinating for the past week or so, so he had to pull her fingers apart, and she squeezed hard when he got his hand in there. He said he just felt the pressure go away.

I just read over the obituary that Dad must've typed up while Emily and I tried to get more sleep, and learned something. I knew my mom had been part of the Bicentennial Band & Chorus in high school, and toured Europe with them, but I never knew she'd been to Lichtenstein. My 10th grade History professor always made fun of it because it was just this tiny little dot of a country on the map.

While she worked at Alcoa Labs when we were little, she invented the packing process for things like yogurt. You know - how the lid is kind of melted to the cup just enough to seal it? My mom did that.

Emily and I figure that this is the end of 1000 Paper Wishes. We kind of slacked off counting in the past two weeks - once the pain med doses got high enough to make her start twitching and halucinating real bad. I'll look through the envelopes though and give one final thank-you list.

We'll still check the box once in a while. Maybe if we get seriously innundated or something, we'll come back. Thanks for your support, guys. I want to hang our first thousand at her funeral. s for everyone.

-Ben