Originally published in 2012
Today my mother left sleepy central PA to visit her friends in Bangladesh. If you don’t know where that is, don’t worry, you’re not the only one. But they make a lot of our clothing. Now that I told you that, you will start to notice more and more of your clothing labels … “Made in Bangladesh.” I apologize in advance for that.
I can never remember things like dates and times so I was puzzling over whether she left today or next Saturday. In other words, we didn’t say goodbye. But it was cool, because she sent me a Facebook message from Chicago O’Hare telling me about the people around her and about how she got bumped up to first class for the 13 hour portion of her flight, which is pretty awesome. And I know, it’s not the same as being in the same room, so people say we are becoming disconnected as a society. But I know what O’Hare looks like, I’ve been there a few times myself, and I know what it feels like to fly, and I know what my Mom looks like, from her smile and the texture of her skin, and if I hear her coughing in a restaurant I already know that it’s her even if I didn’t know she was there, because, you know, she’s my mother. So, really, it’s not that big of a deal that she’s not here, because I got to peer into the things that I don’t know, like what she’s thinking and how she’s feeling right this second. And if it weren’t for the bizarre interconnectedness that Facebook brought us, it wouldn’t be there at all, it would just be, oh, I guess Mom did leave yesterday, because there aren’t any posts on her wall and my siblings are a bit more wild than usual.
And, really, that’s just magic.
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