Happy birthday, Mom

In the last couple of week's I'd been thinking about my late mother's upcoming birthday but it hadn't occurred to me until today that she would have been 70 years old. She passed away in December 2005 in her sleep the night after a gastric bypass surgery. It's always strange as the years go by to wonder what people would be like if they were still around, they're sort of frozen in time once they pass away.

2005 was before the era when I could reliably figure out dates for things using old photos and blog posts, but I was pretty sure I remembered correctly based on the surrounding years. If it happened in 2006 I would have definitely blogged about her passing, and I know it wasn't 2004 because that was my first year at my old exports job and the manager I remembered being around didn't join us in that office until much later. But I was able to confirm with my friend Traci today that 2005 was definitely correct because she happened to be in Seattle visiting me when it happened.

Obviously I could go on and on about her life and our relationship, but really I just wanted to mark the occasion because she was a prolific AOL user and the time we all spent in those chatrooms vanished without a trace. Our lives online were completely ephemeral in her time and now we document them extensively. She hated having her photo taken and it's hard to say if that would have ever changed. I like to think she would have joined the crowd on the various online services as they came along.

Happy birthday, Mom

In the last couple of week's I'd been thinking about my late mother's upcoming birthday but it hadn't occurred to me until today that she would have been 70 years old. She passed away in December 2005 in her sleep the night after a gastric bypass surgery. It's always strange as the years go by to wonder what people would be like if they were still around, they're sort of frozen in time once they pass away.

2005 was before the era when I could reliably figure out dates for things using old photos and blog posts, but I was pretty sure I remembered correctly based on the surrounding years. If it happened in 2006 I would have definitely blogged about her passing, and I know it wasn't 2004 because that was my first year at my old exports job and the manager I remembered being around didn't join us in that office until much later. But I was able to confirm with my friend Traci today that 2005 was definitely correct because she happened to be in Seattle visiting me when it happened.

Obviously I could go on and on about her life and our relationship, but really I just wanted to mark the occasion because she was a prolific AOL user and the time we all spent in those chatrooms vanished without a trace. Our lives online were completely ephemeral in her time and now we document them extensively. She hated having her photo taken and it's hard to say if that would have ever changed. I like to think she would have joined the crowd on the various online services as they came along.