The plane pulled gently back from the gate and I missed it entirely, lost as I was in ruminative thought: this is something that’s happened a lot lately, as I’ve worked through the last few weeks of my life.
This entry, my friends, is a tribute that demands to be written, and I’m worried that I won’t do it well enough. It’s an homage to an incredible woman who once held me in her arms and introduced me to the world. She taught me about life and helped me to learn to speak and read and write. She taught me language. She was my first editor; when I was a child she would help proofread my schoolwork and make corrections and suggestions.
It took decades for me to develop my own voice, but her thoughtful direction helped me to find it.
She inspired me to be better.
When this blog first began it didn’t have focus, but she loved to read every post anyway. She was taking care of Dad when he was ill and she couldn’t get out as much. I think I provided an escape, so whenever I was a day late with a post she made sure I knew about it.
There is a term I’ve recently come to decide that we often misuse: “first love.”
Think about it for a second – so many people say the first person they loved was another teenager, but I think that’s mostly not true. I’m thinking about something different, older, deeper, and more foundational than a teenage infatuation could ever be. As I think about the term “first love,” I think it might be used too recklessly. Because, for many of us, our first love is our mother, and for me this was mine.
And she passed from this world three weeks ago. I just lost my first love.
So here I sit, on a Friday night, in a big 787 flying to the other side of the world. Although she often worried about me and some of the places I go, she cherished my trips and once expressed to me that she wanted me continue traveling.
I didn’t get to call her on the drive to the airport today, which is an absence I felt acutely (so I phoned my sister). And I know she won’t be waiting anxiously for the next post, and my heart breaks at that.
But I will do the things that she loved for me to do, and I will write with the voice she helped me find. And somewhere in there I will know that she lives on, because each new post will also carry a little bit of her voice.
As they always have.
Love Always,
Butterblogger
(Image from Wikipedia)
butterblogger 
I read your every post and marvel at the places you have been and the sights you have seen. I read because your Mom told me too. So I share your adventures. Before the infirmities of age occupied my days we visited . I’m sad . I have missed her laughter and advice. Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone
Beautiful post, Mark! I was just thinking th
What a great tribute to your mommy.