The bulk pecans inspired a holiday trail mix, which Lambie made with Elizabeth and packaged as daycare and hostess gifts. The recipe was a variation of one her mother prepared years before as an after-school snack. Not surprisingly, Elizabeth most loved the red and green M&M’s™. Though it was an unwelcome time, making the mix with Elizabeth gave Lambie a reprieve from her illness. She referred to the recipe as “Merry Mix.”

Leftover batches – and they were plentiful – became a household staple served to friends and family who visited with Lambie after her chemotherapy treatments. It also became the only food that she could stomach. A bowl of Merry Mix sat on her nightstand alongside a pitcher of water and stacks of cancer how-to books. Ever the opportunist, Elizabeth snuck a few M&M’s™ each morning when she woke up her mother.

Lambie spent hours in bed listening to the sounds of Elizabeth’s childhood beyond the closed door – the cacophonous banging of pots and pans, exuberant sing-alongs. But the night before her last treatment, Lambie left her bed to sing to Elizabeth in her great-grandmother’s rocking chair. She promised her sleeping daughter that she would do whatever needed to be done in order to live. Lambie had survived the childhood loss of her father and could not bear Elizabeth experiencing this grief.