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Tuesday, July 30, 2013

A Staggering Work Of Heartbreaking Tweeting

Okay, so anyone who has ever ventured into the Twitterverse knows it's generally filled with a bunch of narcissists regurgitating excruciating amounts of minutiae of their relatively mundane existence that no one really gives two shits about. Yours truly included. I'm not saying it's not fun nebbing into famous people's lives, reading the latest news of your favorite celeb/musician/egotistical douchebag politician first (I'm looking at you, Weiner-head), or actually making new friends with similar interests, but seriously, we all know it's just a craptastic time suck.

But once in awhile, someone gets it right. Someone harnesses the power of mass connection and takes it in a new, meaningful direction. That person is NPR's Saturday Weekend Edition host, Scott Simon.

Earlier this week, Simon's mother lay on her death bed in a Chicago hospital, succumbing to what, I don't know. Simon took to Twitter to document his last days...hours...minutes at the bedside of his precious Mom.





They sang her favorite show tunes, she joked with the medical staff as well as her son, imparted some lasting advice, and when she was afraid, Simon held his mother as if she was a small child. It's a tough, sobering reality to cradle the cradler.










Perhaps he felt a personal, historic significance to log what he was experiencing in order to recall his journey once the surrealness of the inevitable funeral and internment passed, or he used it as a means to keep his own family in DC informed without leaving her side to phone in details, or maybe he just needed to throw his feelings out there because the enormity of watching your mother die is just so indescribably massive, it's impossible to process alone.






Whatever his reasoning, his honest documentation is as beautiful as it is heartbreaking. He fearlessly laid himself out bare. And I, for one, thank him for sharing, despite being reduced to a blubbering mass. In hindsight, having my eyes well up with tears, blurring my vision while trying to scroll the TelePrompTer for a live newscast probably wasn't the smartest move.

Simon's struggle with his desire to hold onto his mother while knowing he had to let her go touched me deeply, because A) I HAVE A FUCKING HEART and B) my own treasure, Big Mar is 92 years old. I know she can't live forever, but she is still so full of life and love and wisdom to depart. She is a lesson in grace, elegance, and joie de vivre. She is an amazing woman. With age, Big Mar has become more carefree, more light, taking delight in the simple things.

She is an inspiration.

She's also mortal.

The day she leaves this mortal coil, I will be completely devastated. But, much like Simon, I hope I will have the opportunity, as difficult as it will be, to hold her hand, shower her with love, and make sure she knows the enormous impact she has had on not just ours, but every life she touched as she slips through to the other side.