Missing Mom 30+ Years Later

I was a long way from home when I got the call that my Mom had been killed in a car accident. I was working at CKLY in Lindsay, Ontario in Canada. I had just arrived there to become Morning News Anchor a week earlier. I was knee deep in the chaos that a newsroom could be during a morning shift back in 1985 when the phone rang.

My Mom was returning from Ottawa, where she had traveled with two friends to donate funds to the Children's Hospital from a craft sale they had taken part in. Mom let her best friend drive her car, and as they proceeded through an intersection, a police cruiser traveling at excessive speed, blew through a stop sign and t-boned Mom's Ford Escort. She died on site at age 47.

I don't talk about this much. It happened 32 years ago, and, as bad as this may sound, it feels like it happened to someone else. Though it goes without saying that her loss changed the course of my life in very destructive ways. I was 21 years old at the time. More of my life has been spent without a Mom than with one. I passed the age she died at 6 years ago.

It's a little therapeutic for me to write about the accident every once in a while. It helps me to remember. But, most importantly, on this Mother's Day weekend, I write about this to remind everyone to cherish every person in their lives, everyday, because everything in your life can change in an instant.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom.