If you get a chance to go somewhere, you do it!

On March 10th, it was four years since my mom passed away. Already about 1,500 days since I last talked to her, and I miss her every day.

In the later years, we were able to spend a good amount of time with her back home in Pittsburgh, especially since we moved back within driving distance around 2017. Being a little closer in terms of travel time helped us to have more time with my mom as she aged and wasn't as able to move as well.

She had quite a bit of sayings, that is for sure. She always challenged me to do the best that I could throughout my whole life. She certainly didn't hold back when she had even an inkling that I wasn't putting my best into things. I'm grateful to her for that. Always will be. I miss that.

An outing in Pittsburgh during the holidays, circa 2008.

She didn't travel much. We did have a burst when I was a kid, say ages 8 to 17, when we took a few road trips with my siblings. We saw the full East Coast; my mom and I also flew to California a couple of times to see my oldest brother and his family. My mom loved these trips. So did I. You learn so much. Gain so much perspective. You understand geography so much better and what a river or mountain means to a region and a culture.

These times stuck with me, and I'm sure they shaped my connection with travel. Beth and I have traveled quite a bit; we love it. And we're going to travel quite a lot more...

As we spent time with my mom as she was getting older, the one saying that she would echo with each new place Beth and I would show her pictures of was, "Hey kid, if you get a chance to go somewhere, you do it!"

I don't think a day goes by that I don't hear her voice in my head saying that very statement.

And why not take it up a notch. After all, I do need to give everything my best, as she taught me. So, I aim to put my own spin on my mom's line. And that is: "Create as many chances as you can to go somewhere and do it!".

I think my mom would like that adaptation quite a bit. At least, I hope she would.

With love,

Chris

My mom and dad on their wedding day in 1957. And yes, I do realize that I somehow look exactly like both of them.

Here are some other good lines; they make you move on what matters (or at least they make me move):

• "Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever." - from Anthony Doerr's "All the Light We Cannot See" (read the book please, don't settle for watching an adaptation)

  
  

• "If I live the life I'm given, I won't be scared to die" - from "The Once and Future Carpenter" by The Avett Brothers

• Pretty much the entire song "Ends of the Earth" by Lord Huron, but for our purposes, the first verse gives you the idea:

  
  

  "Oh, there's a river that winds on forever

  I'm gonna see where it leads

  Oh, there's a mountain that no man has mounted

  I'm gonna stand on the peak

  
  

  Out there's a land that time don't command

  Wanna be the first to arrive

  No time for ponderin', why, I'm a-wanderin'

  Not while we're both still alive"