I miss you, Mom.

Today is the twentieth anniversary of my mother's death.

I can't help but think of all the things she missed in my life. The end of my first marriage. The second marriage that would have brought her a new daughter-in-law and a grandson.

When she died, I had barely begun my career. I was in the middle of writing my first feature story for Macworld, which ended up being the cover story early in 1990. Later that year, I was named a Contributing Editor for the magazine.

She missed my first book, which wasn't published until five years later. Now I'm closing in on my fortieth book. She would have been proud. We dedicated our JavaScript book to her and to Dori's father, also gone now.

We had our differences in the years leading up to her death; I was born with a disability, so we were especially close when I was a child. But I think that she found it difficult to make the transition when I grew up, and I don't feel that she ever really accepted me as an adult. I regret that we were not able to bridge that gap before she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And then it was simply too late; time began to move too quickly. It was only six weeks from that diagnosis to the end.

Rather than sketching my remembrance of hospitals and pain, I'd like to share a picture of her that her sister, our beloved Auntie Theresa, gave us a few years ago. It shows a young girl of 8 or 9, smiling into the camera, a girl who had her whole life ahead of her. She didn't know what the future would hold, but I know her story. All those possibilities led to her long and happy marriage to my father, Joe Negrino, and to her legacy of her four children: my sister Marie, my late sister Pattie, my brother Robert, and me.

This was Dorothy, who became Dorothy Negrino, who became my mother.

I love you, Mom. I remember you.