take it out of the pot. remove as much of that soil as you can. push and or squeeze the caudex with your fingers. is it squishy? does your finger go through it? if not there may be hope. Get an airy fast draining soil mixture, i grow mine in miracle grow but there are many soilless mixtures you can do as well. and or cactus potting soil. use that when you re-pot. Also check the roots on this guy and make sure they're not all mush. as long as the caudex is intact and free of rot it can produce new roots. You can actually take more of the caudex out of the soil when you re-pot as well. I've done that to all of mine, makes them look like they have a bigger 'foot'. if in the even the roots are rotted but the caudex is in good shape bury it only deep enough to allow new roots to form on the bottom. if the stem is still firm pick a place you'd like to cut the top off at. Remove all those dead leaves on the stalk itself(keep it as tall as you'd like) and clip above where you'd like it grow new heads from. Get it outside. These guys can take full sun no problem. Now the next part is important. Dont water it for awhile. Let it try to heal itself. If the caudex and stalk are still firm there is hope that it will come back and thrive. Id say wait a week after you put it in new airier planting media. Also make sure the pot your using isn't huge. You could probably stem down into a smaller planter since im thinking there is going to be some root rot. The smaller the pot, the quicker the roots will fill it and the faster you'll see new growth from the stalk. I wish you luck with this guy! i hope it comes back for you. If in the even the stalk is mush and the caudex is mush. I'd state the above. Put it in the garbage, theres no hope

The soil is all wrong. Gravel at the bottom of the pot doesn't improve drainage, and actually makes things worse. The same goes for sand. Remove the plant from the pot and toss the old soil. Get all the old soil off the roots and let the rootball dry out for a week or two. You want it completely dry. Don't worry, this won't hurt the plant. It stores a lot of water in the trunk. Next, the soil. There are a couple ways to approach this. Since you're growing indoors, the "gritty mix" is ideal if you can find all the ingredients (see here: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/2842847/container-soils-water-movement-and-retention-xxii?n=99). If you cannot find those ingredients, mix potting soil with perlite (or pumice, whichever you can find) in a 50/50 ratio. Finally, planting. The pot you're using looks about the right size. Repot the plant with whatever soil mix you chose. I'd plant a bit higher than you have it in the photo, with the roots just below the soil line. Do not top-dress it with gravel (holds in moisture) and don't water it for another two weeks. Even then, water sparingly until you see new leaves emerging, and in the future don't water until the soil has been completely dry for at least a couple of weeks. Indoors these plants don't use a lot of water. I have one outdoors in a pot here in CA and I water it *maybe* once a month. Final note on soil. People will come along after me and say you have to use the gritty mix and you should not use soils based on organics under any circumstances. That's not exactly true. The advantage of the gritty mix is that you have less risk of overwatering, which is the biggest danger for people new to container plants. So if you can make the gritty mix, I would do it. If you don't have time or the ingredients aren't available, don't worry, just use the soil/perlite mix, water very infrequently and you should be fine.

Well this was my favorite plant of hers, but I do have a couple more plants from her that are doing well! This was by far her oldest plant(my siblings and I argued over who got it) and of course it dies on me/I killed it! I'm sure my mom is getting a good chuckle of how much I've stressed about a darn plant! Haha thank you all again. Yes cancer is a real kick in the pants! I'm sure many can relate. Specially when they pass young (my mom would of been 58 this year dad also died of cancer.) but I'm certainly blessed to have had them as long as I did. Thank you all for the kind words.

ycloh1's photo is of Yucca elephantipes. Many species of plant form large succulent-like bases but may be completely unrelated. Those out of focus little blobs in the photo above here is a shot of a cycad's collaroid roots (totally normal, and a good sign the plant has been fixing nitrogen and trying to grow well).