My Role as Google Proxy

My mother died last week, and my friend Dave Winer told me at dinner the other night that I would feel as if I were walking around without a limb for a while. It's a little different because instead of lacking a limb, I feel as if I am missing an Internet connection.

Mom had an incurable lung disease, pulmonary fibrosis, or scarring of the lungs, and so she would call  up often to ask me to do research for her about the disease and the myriad of drugs she was taking to treat its symptoms. "Could you look on the Internet?" she would ask in her heavy German accent, which hadn't mellowed during her sixty years of life as an American.

One day she called me up to ask if I had ever heard of a businessman named Bill Gates, who, with his wife, appeared on the Charlie Rose show, her favorite television program. When I told her I had met a few times with Gates when I was working with a software company (MicroPhone) in the 80s and 90s, it was as if my past life immediately caught up with her. The success of the technology revolution created an embedded link between mom and myself. We could talk about the Internet because it was now in her living room and not just in my office.

Mom never read my blog and never used a computer, and  she did not approve of one  letting the world subscribe to one's private thoughts. This was ironic, because mom -- who boldly survived the Holocaust by escaping the Warsaw ghetto in its last days and  working under  false passports for a Polish farmer and then a Viennese sausage manufacturer -- always believed that thoughts should be free. On her grave, we have inscribed her credo, "Die Gedanken sind frei," or "Thoughts are unfettered."

It's a thought that morphs well into the digital age.

Comments

[Nancy]

Sylvia--I am so very sorry to hear about your mother's death. Thank you for sharing this wonderful tribute to a remarkable woman.

[Ramin]

My condolences Sylvia. What a beautifully written remembrance.

[Adele Aldridge]

Sylvia,

I am very sorry to read about your mother's death but as usual, love what you write about it - and THAT you write about it.

love,
Adele

[mary hodder]

Sylia, I'm sorry to hear about this.. but your post is wonderful like you always are. Thanks for sharing it.

[Vincenzo]

Sylvia,

I lost my father at the end of last year and I sometimes wonder if I'll see him when I go back to Montreal ... I wonder if that feeling will ever go away.

my condolences to you...

[Paul Wicks]

I'm sorry, Sylvia. Although I hope you're coping well, it's not something that people should just "get over". It gets better, over time. I appreciate your sharing her story. It sounds like her life and times were momentous and that she lived them with grace and courage.

[Karl Fogel]

Sylvia, my condolences -- but thank you for a lovely remembrance, which I hope she would have appreciated despite its being on your blog.

-Karl, from breakfast

[Renee Blodgett]

Sylvia,
I had no idea. Thanks for sharing -- a hard thing to do publicly after a death of someone you care about and love as deeply as a parent.

My condolences and sympathies. Call if you need anything or want to talk and thanks again for sharing.

Renee

[Jonathan Feinstein]

Sylvia,

So sorry for your loss. It is no suprise to those who know you to learn that your mother was a remarkable woman. Her gift, and your many contributions to our lives, puts us all in her debt. Our thoughts are with you.

Jonathan

[satyen]

I don't know you but I'm sorry.

[Ann]

Sylvia,

I'm saddened to hear about your Mom's passing -- I'll cook a brisket and have you and Evan over. Food, the great Jewish comfort. hugs & kisses, Ann

[Dan]

Hey, Sylvia: Sorry to hear about your mom. Sounds like a wonderful woman--not surprising, knowing you. Take care.