Mom

My colleague and co-author Troy Hicks has been documenting his digital reading practices in a series of blog posts.   Together he and I have been thinking about what it means to read digitally, and we have started our inquiry with our own habits.  I continue to learn from Troy how to be a better curator in the digital age, but I do have routines that I follow in order to manage the abundance of information that comes to me each day.  

I usually start with an email triage, attending to both professional and personal emails that need immediate response.  Then I move to social media, to sift through articles that may have relevance to my life or my work.  Today during that social media sweep, I noticed a post by George Takei, which had also been reposted by one of my favorite pastors.  When George Takei and that pastor both choose to share, I pay attention.

Here was Takei's post:

  

I played his game.  I didn't cheat.

I closed my eyes, though I already had the person in my head.  Closing my eyes, however, brought a clear picture of her face.  My mom.  I smiled because in my mind, she smiled.

I wrote a few sentences.

"My mom provided me with the inspiration, guidance, and clear path for becoming who I am today.  Even more, though, she provided me with a role model for being a "working mom" and for loving unconditionally and selflessly.  She supported, taught, and loved me from start to (not yet) finish, and those are the lessons I cherish most in my own role as mom."

I watched the video and decided, as Takei challenged, to follow their lead.  But since my mom also taught me how to write , I thought it might make us both happier to publish her influence to the world.

Even though blogging was not on the docket for today, I wanted to write this one for my mom.  Thanks for being the single most influential person in my life.  There's no question that you are standing first in line of the Five People I will Meet in Heaven.*


*The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom is one of the most influential books I have read.  It has made me think constantly about the people that cross my path - and the paths I cross - and it helps me to remember how we are all connected and that our actions affect so much more than we consciously know.