By Lexi MooreTuff resident and author Mary Francis has lived an extraordinary life. Rather than let her experiences be forgotten, she’s working to write them down for grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the future to read.Mary has been a writer most of her life. Starting in grade school in Louisiana, she would write for the school paper and write up the community events for her local paper."I wanted to (write) all my life, I guess," Mary said during an interview.After marrying Claude Francis, Mary stopped writing while she traveled the country with her husband, who was enlisted in the US Air Force.In 1975 a heart problem Claude had developed demanded surgery. His heart could not be repaired so Mary dedicated the next 12 years of her life to caring for her terminally ill husband.During one of many trips in and out of the hospital, Mary met a woman who was impressed by the way she was handling her husband’s mood swings and illness. The woman thought she was the only wife dealing with these issues and asked Mary how she handles her husband’s illness.Mary responded, "Everyone has these problems. I’m gonna write a book about it sometime."Years after her husband died, Mary began losing her eyesight to macular degeneration. She vowed that "if I am gonna’ write that book I had better hurry up and finish."Because Mary was losing her vision, she was unable to physically write the words to her book, so she dictated them into cassette tapes. The tapes were sent to her daughter in Ohio who transcribed them and found a publisher that agreed to print 25 copies of the book."Live for Today" was published in 1998 when Mary was 79 years old. The book tells the story of how one couple dealt with terminal heart disease and how their "faith in God and love for each other, helped to smooth the way and make daily living bearable, creating happy memories as they live for today, one day at a time."Mary continued to write and hopes to publish another book, "The Farmer’s Daughter," based on the adventures of her life.In honor of Mother’s Day weekend the Crescent is publishing a tribute Mary wrote for her mother.