There’s an adage I’ve heard repeated many times that on their deathbed nobody ever wished they had spent more time at work. Well last week right after telling me from memory her Social Security number and less than 24 hours before her final breath, my Mom did just that.
“I so enjoyed my career at the Bureau of Labor Statistics,” she said. “I wish I had worked there longer.”
My Mom, an economist and librarian who died on New Year’s Day, was a nerd.
She might not have identified herself as such, but she was definitely a nerd.
This lady took no prisoners. Ideas and words were important to her. Mastering concepts, too. At her dinner table you had to take a position and then defend it or you were going down, buddy, down, down, down.
She was a loving mother of course, but if she lent you her car she first memorized the odometer reading.
She had three children and I am clearly the least accomplished of those. She beat the S&P for 50 years running. She asked me at dinner one night to point out a lesbian. And she loved to dance, especially the Jitterbug.
Her father was a newspaper editor in the South who had been an artillery lieutenant in France during World War I. One night when she was not yet in school they awoke to find a cross burning on the lawn.
On her sixth birthday she got a box of chocolates and ate them in front of her uncle, Milton Ashley, then age eight. Milton later became quite a famous psychiatrist in Seattle and a longtime neighbor of Bill Gates. “I was eating all the chocolates I didn’t like that much, saving the best for last,” she told me. “Then Mother came in the room and made me give the rest — all the good ones — to Milton. That’s when I learned to eat the good ones first.”
Lois Cringely passed away last week at my sister’s home in Reston, Virginia at age 89, 23 years after my father yet far too soon for anyone who knew her.
I miss her already.
Mark: The two toughest obits any writer has to do are the ones for his or her parents. You did your mom proud.
\dmc
“Eat the good chocolates first”
Words to live by.
My most sincere condolences.
unitron
Bob, Your mom was really a wonderful person.
Bob,
It is courageous to share the most private of moments in the most public of forums. I do not know you and I do not know your mom. I have read your columns for decades because I value your “no holds barred” insight into tech. I will miss your mom’s insight which you shared with all of us. It is clear she played a pivotal role in helping you become who you are today. Thank you for your courage. And I thank your mom for her insight.
My heartfelt condolences are with you and your family.
Darcy
I am so sorry for your loss.
My condolences. I lost my mother less than a year ago and there isn’t a day I don’t think of her. It looks like your mom led her life the way she wanted to lead it, and that’s something about which you can be quite proud.
Sincerely,
Charles K.
As a friend told me after both my parents were gone, Welcome to the Orphans Club. It is a different world, nearly all of us get there eventually.
Thank you for sharing your memories with us. I am sorry to hear of your loss. May her memory always be a blessing to you.
You have my sympathy. It sounds like she was a wonderful lady.
My heartfelt condolences! Also thank you for sharing. It is always good to be able to connect at least on some level emotionally to the people whose stuff you read regularly.
Please take the time you need. A lost like this is NOT a small thing to just be shrugged away. Do what you have to do. We will be here when you are ready again for some decent punditry.
Oh, and Happy New Year to everyone!
Thanks for such a wonderful recounting of your mother and her importance. It was a lovely and moving piece that really brought home your loss. Clearly, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. My deepest condolences to you and your family.
Besides my condolences, I think your mom has been a real dedicated worker.
Not an employee, but rather someone who tried her best to make her world a better one.
No matter where she was working.
And I am really happy she allowed us to have one of the best and more acute writers ever.
My condolences. When you said you were helping your 89-year-old mother during “an especially difficult period of her life,” I was afraid this was on its way, but didn’t want to say anything, hoping for the best. But I recognized the terminology because I helped my own mother through a “difficult time” last May at age 87. Good luck. Words can’t express…
All our best wishes to you and your family, Bob, and thank you for this nice memory of your mum.
My prayers are with you and your family, Robert. Having just lost my Father a year ago and my Mother 6 months prior, I understand all too well that sense of loss. Pain fades, but memories take the place. Thanks for sharing yours with us.
Bob / Mark
I’m so very sorry to hear of your Mom’s passing. Thank you for sharing her story with us. She was a wonderful woman and you are blessed to have her as your Mom. You and your family are in my prayers
Regards
Dave
My condolences to you, your family, and everyone who loved your mother. You’re in my thoughts and prayers.
My condolences to you and your family. May she rest in peace.
Bob,
What a wonderful obituary you wrote for your mom. My condolences for you and your family and may you find comfort in her life and memory.
My condolences to you, your family, and everyone whose life your mother touched.
I lost my father almost 20 years ago and my mother has been losing the battle with dementia for a while now. It’s tough, but that’s the way it is supposed to go. The children take their parents into the future.
I hope and pray that you never have to bury a child like too many of us have had to do. That’s NOT the way it is supposed to go.
Speaking of which, some of us long term readers remember this column: https://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2002/pulpit_20020425_000431.html
Thanks for the link, Ronc. I stopped following Cringely for a while after he left the dead trees and went to PBS, so I missed that.
Bob/Mark, I am so very sorry that we are both members of another club that no one ever wants to join.
I’m glad PBS kept that link active.
I’m sorry for your loss, Bob.
My condolences.It sounds like she led a good life, and a long one at that. Like my own mother’s passing at 95, I like that your mother’s passing was not a surprise to anyone and that all had an opportunity to say “Goodbye.” This is as it should be. May she rest in peace and may her descendants gather closer together in her absence.
I’m sorry to hear. People will argue about whether it’s easier when someone goes quickly or when someone goes slowly, but I say it’s hard either way.
So sorry for your loss Bob. Thank you for sharing that piece of her life story.
Thank you for sharing your eloquent eulogy to your mother. May peace be with you.
Bob,
Many years ago, before Al Gore knew there was an Internet, I needed some historical inflation rate figures. A professor friend of mine said, call the Bureau of Labor Statistics, here’s their number. I did, and in minutes I had the data I was looking for. It was one of the few times when I recognized just how amazing and effective this country’s government can be. Perhaps your mom had a hand in compiling or distributing that data. In any event, bless her.
Bob,
That was quite a story, thank you for sharing that. Sounds like your mother was quite an amazing lady! You have my deepest sympathy.
She sounds awesome. My condolences to all your family.
A tough thing to go through. But remember the good times and don’t be so hard on yourself! Perfect people are hard to live with!
My condolences. I’ll eat a box of chocolates in her memory.
My condolences on the passing of your Mother. Thank you for sharing this with your readers, she sounds like a fantastic Mom and role model.
Grive not in your selfishness but rejoice in their happiness.
We all would be so lucky to live until we are 89. Our condolences to you all.
Very sorry for your loss. I’ve followed you posts so long you feel like family. I am saddened too.
My mother once said she never felt like a grown-up until her second parent died. It does change our self outlook along with our grieving. You have my sympathy for your hard emotional time. Your obit paints the life of a genuine firecracker.
Bob,
Please accept my deepest condolences at your loss.
Mike Dahlstrom
I can’t imagine how I will feel when that day comes for either of my parents. Still, your mother had a long life and it sounds like a good one. While I’m sure you are deeply saddened by the loss, it must at least make it a bit easier that she made the most of her long life.
This column has made me think quite a bit. My mother will be 88 in a couple of months. She’s had a very distinguished life and career and many would call her formidable. She’s still going strong(ish). My father died when I was ten and I’m her only child. For many decades I’ve had the unwavering belief that she ‘s bombproof and, although neither she nor I are in denial about the end of her life, it’s taken Bob’s article to get me to think sensibly about what it may be like when she’s not around any more.
Bob, the story of your Mother’s life and death has just reached me in New Zealand. It is true, when parents leave, they leave memories, and, one pearl of wisdom my mother left me with in her last year with us was; “you can trust a thief but you can’t trust a liar”. My mother taught me well as a child that lying was never tolerated. So Mum’s are great, before, during and after. Thank you for sharing. I would love to compile a personality report for you on your mother Bob, it’s what I do (forensic analysis of personalities) email me if you like and I would be happy to send you something for your Mom. peter@datalogistics.co.nz (New Zealand).
I’m sorry to hear of your loss, and I hope you and your family heal as quickly and well as possible. I’m glad your mother had such a full and reasonably lengthy life. She reminds me in some ways of my mother, especially re the mention of defending positions at the dinner table.
Bob,
You have my deepest sympathies. Your mother sounds like an amazing woman.
I lost my own mother the day before my 45th birthday, just 2.5 years after my father passed away. She was pretty amazing, too. I always assumed that doctors never attended their patients’ funerals–except in small towns–but two of Mom’s doctors came to her memorial service, and one of them even spoke.
Tomorrow would have been Mom’s 68th birthday. I still miss the hell out of her.
My condolences for your loss. Take comfort in that she had a long, productive and fruitful life. Those of us who believe know that this is just a short interruption until we meet our loved ones again in a better place.
Your comment on your maternal grandfather surprised me by its familiarity. We may very well be related somewhat distantly by marriage.
Wonderful tribute and my condolences, may she as they say rest in peace.
In our own way, we all miss her.
With deepest sympathy.
bb
Condolences for your loss.
I miss my mom, too.
Please accept my sorrow for your loss. That’s a beautiful tribute to your mom.
So sorry for your loss. She sounds like a great lady.
Bob
Our condolences. She is our hero and you are too.
Well said sir. My condolences.
Condolences; tough to lose the ones we love. I’ve personally always hated this time of year – as it’s also claimed my love ones. Winter kills.
Hang in there; spring comes and the flowers will bloom again. And our loved ones will live on with us in our hearts and memories.
drew
Bob, I’m so sorry for your loss. I’m sure the inspiration and curiosity your many years of writing have sparked in me is in no small part due to the wonderful human being your mother was to you. My thoughts are with you.
You have my sympathies Bob. My mom passed in 2008 from the same pancreatic cancer that killed Steve Jobs. I was always hopeful some sort of treatment was around the corner from all the developments that I kept reading about but it never came. I wish I had spent more time with her but my dad was awesome enough to scan several hundred photographic negatives from when they were younger and 61 years was not enough, just like 89 were not enough.
Our parents shape our outlook on life, hopefully for the better. Grateful that she helped to shape yours that you could pass it on to your readers. Blessings to your family and glad that you could help care for her as well.
Bob, My heart goes out to you and your family. Thank-you for sharing about your great mother. I love how real you are!
I lost my dad just over a year ago. Any time I ran into something that just didn’t seem right, all I had to do was pick up the phone and call him to see whether I was right or wrong. A week after he died, I had something come up and instinctively, grabbed my cell to call him. That was when reality sank in. I really miss him. Condolences to you and your family.
lost my mum 15+ years ago and even now I’ll think of something and say to myself, jeez, I ought to ask mum about that…
My condolences –
After reading your stuff for 20 years, these few sentences about your mother have helped me know you better
Thanks
My sincerest condolences.
Condolences. Mom ended her life at Reston’s hospital and nearby skilled nursing facility. While fine institutions. If I had to do it again I’d place her under hospice care at home. Your sister made the right call.
my sincere condolences.
My deepest sympathy. As hard as one’s loved one passing away, you can find solace in the fact that we are eternal beings and that death is but a new beginning in our eternal progression.
I deeply saddened by your lost. Please accept my sincere condolences for you and your family. to eat the good chocolates first is a good motto to live by.
Dear Bob – What a beautiful tribute to your Mom. Thank you for sharing it with us, and please know that my heartfelt sympathy is with you and your family. She will always be with you in spirit, and extremely proud of you. A great son, and a great lady. Peace be with you.
I am sorry to hear of you mother’s passing. I recall that when my father died (10 years ago) thinking that he would never be gone, because he was in my head. I can still hear the comments he would have made about things, were he still here. I hope your mother stays with you, too.
My condolences, Bob. She sounds like a hell of a great lady.
A very heartfelt tribute to your mom who clearly had a lot of influence on your life(she kept a track of Apple’s stock price). My condolences to you and your family.
Vivek
Your mom sounds like she was quite the lady. You do her proud with your genuine, loving words.
I am happy for her that she was able to pass at home, not in a hospital. My own mother hated the idea of dying in some impersonal place, and my brother managed to help her stay at home until she died.
Hi Bob
What a wonderful obit for your mum
Condolences to you and the family, lost my dad in ’99 and still miss him
My condolences to you and your family. My dad died in 2004, and I loved my dad, so I know a bit of what you are going through. I still today cherish the memories I have of him. I’m sure you will cherish the memories of your mom for the rest of your life.
thanks for sharing…
My thoughts are with you…. We will all meet someday in the clearing at the end of the road.
Very sorry to hear of your loss Bob…
Bob, I commented when your mom passed away earlier this year.Two days ago I lost my own mother and was reminded of your reflection on your mother’s life and how I was moved by it. It’s indeed a sad club of which to be a part, but I’m so grateful for the time I had with her.