Two sisters remember their mother, who died battling cancer shortly after Thanksgiving four years ago

This is Dave Isay, creator of StoryCorps, the project that records the stories of everyday Americans. StoryCorps airs each Friday on NPR's morning edition. Support for StoryCorps comes from AT&T, proudly bringing StoryCorps listeners America's past, present and future. The new AT&T, your world delivered.

Welcome to the StoryCorps podcast, I'm Michael Garofalo, filling in for Dave Isay this week. In this episode, a conversation between two sisters.
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I'm Danielle Hall. I'm Gabrielle Hall. And today we're gonna talk about our Mum.

Danielle and Gabrielle Hall lost their mother, Martha Hall, to breast cancer in 2003. She was 54. Her daughters came to the StoryCorps in San Francisco to remember her.

Mum was amazing. She was determined and strong and intense and good at everything she did more than anybody else's mum that I knew.
She's still better than anybody else's mum we know.

Like the time that she sent me that poem about "if you are having a bad day, bake a cake. And if it's still bad, put on a red dress." And after the first time that she's been in hospital, I went out and bought her a red skirt.
I read that and gave her a pair of red shoes and she would wear her red shoes to the chemotherapy. And she'd tell everybody there that you can't have a bad day if you're wearing red shoes.

I just wish that I could remember her healthy.
Yeah. I have pictures of our last Thanksgiving of mum in her pyjamas.
At the head of the table.
With an IV pole. She'd had cancer at that point for 14 years.
And she hadn't been able to eat and she hadn't been eating for days. And it was the last meal she had. Mere10 days after that. Everyone knew she was dying. Now it really kind of shifted our whole perspective of Thanksgiving, that we really had stuff to be thankful about, that we had mum.

The last time I saw her, I'd been telling her that we were gonna be OK, that you were gonna be OK and we would take care of everybody, but she had done everything she could to teach us and love us and raise us, and it was time for her to let go... that we loved her and she'd always be with us. That makes Thanksgiving really special that we were spending it together. And before we eat, we will go around and say what we are thankful for. And it's not something minor. And Thanksgiving is a good time for us to remember.

Gabrielle and Danielle Hall, remembering their mother--Martha at StoryCorps in San Francisco. Read more stories like this one in the first ever StoryCorps book--''Listening Is an Act of Love''. And catch Dave Isay on the ''Listening Is an Act of Love'' book tour. He'll be reading in Chicago at Women & Children First on Nov. 18th, and on Nov.19th at Anderson's Bookshop in Naperville. If you are in Milwaukee, come out for the reading at the Milwaukee public library on Tuesday Nov. 20th.

Major support for StoryCorps provided by AT&T and by the cooperation for public broadcasting. The StoryCorps archive is housed at the American Folk Life Center at the Library of Congress. Tune in the StoryCorps broadcast, Tuesdays on NPR's news and notes and Fridays on NPR's morning edition.

I'm Michael Garofalo, thanks for listening.