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Toph and Lindsey Blankenship, and their mom, Kim Dickerson.

This story comes from Kim Dickerson, whose mother, Peggy, sent an e-mail out with Kim's story:

As a PTA mom and a young one full of potential energy and creativity, how delighted the ladies of the school PTA were to find me drooling over all the little craft ideas for teacher gifts, student treats, and various celebratory decor. Here I came, ready to work, ready to spend, and agreeable to anything. We made lunches in decorated sand pails, we stamped flower pots, assembled decorative cookie mixes, sewed, tied, raffia-ed any thing that would sit still long enough to qualify as a gift of good will. If we could stamp, stencil or otherwise sear an apple emblem on it, or fashion it into a snow man, spring flower, or tasty snack, we made it happen. There were three of us and we worked like dogs making each cute and charming celebration a notch better than the other.

I loved my role as the creative crafty one. I embraced it. Our dining room table was donned with glue guns, glitter, scissors, scraps, paint, newspaper, and if you looked really close, maybe some dinner. My two children grew up in this elementary craft show, watching with hunger pains as the most beautiful, fun, delicious basket of treats would get the name of their teacher smacked to it and be shipped off to school with a frantic "Now don't tip that over!" "Hold the bottom!" "Do I need to take that in myself?" I could only imagine what they could be thinking. "Gee mom, we are the ones working all day at school. Why do the teachers get the treats?" But they continued for years to be my pack mules without so much as a moan.

It finally dawned on me, years later, that my own children who deserved so much celebration and cheer, were getting the least. As they grew older, they were very glad when the gifts slowed down as the years moved on. I sensed resistance when I put a frilly tag on a bag of cookies to go to the middle school, but they were willing. They knew my reputation as well as the school did, it was expected.

I have always looked back and felt guilty for not doing more for my kids during those times. I wondered how many times I neglected them to put together a cutsie gift for a teacher or special parent at school. I wondered what they thought of all that crafty craziness.

Now, years later, I am 43 and battling round 2 of stage 4 breast cancer. My kids are 16 and 19, Needless to say, there is a lot less froo and fluff. It is mostly about getting through the day. My recent chemo treatments included what my doctor coined as "Old School" chemo -- the kind that leaves you gagging and retching on the floor for days. The first round scared us all, as I lay nearly comatose, unable to eat or drink for days. My son remembered I liked the ice at a nearby restaurant and he brought me a cup of it and some peanut butter crackers that he teasingly ribs me for calling "nabs." That was the magical first meal that I could stomach. He was so proud that he could bring his mom some relief. Three weeks later, I was preparing for another course of the same curing poison. But this time the kids would both be on church retreats. When I came home from the hospital, both of the children had packed and left, but on the kitchen table, I found a treasure.

A pink plastic decorated Easter Basket -- Full of Easter grass, purposefully poofed up around the sides, and several varieties of crackers positioned in a deliberately displayed fashion. A decorative tag, handwritten in precious 19-year-old-son script: "Recovery Package -- Love you."

The best gift ever.