Fulfilling my Mother's Bucket List - DO IT NOW!

Can you believe that in 6 weeks, 2021 will be over? We all thought that 2020 was tough year but 2021 has been far from smooth sailing. Just when we thought Covid might be retreating, the Delta variant reared its ugly head and put us all back into a tailspin as school was starting in New Jersey. If that was not bad enough, my entire town (just below my 2nd floor office) was completely flooded by Hurricane Ida and I broke out in a painful case of shingles. The Perfect Storm; it was a such a dark period.

I finally started feeling human again and my hometown of Millburn began to recover. I took a break from LinkedIn for most of the time but still managed to get my work done, and continued my hectic working and volunteering schedule.

I was searching for an article I wrote about pulling out oil tanks and found an unpublished draft of a post that I penned in 2018. Just a moment before I said to someone: Can you believe this year is almost over? There is still so much I wanted to do, but the flooding and my illness derailed all of my plans for September.

This article was written a few months after I experienced one of the best and most fun, live sporting events I had ever attended. I had to change several words to past tense, and hope I can convince even one reader to seize the day and go spend time with your parents and older relatives NOW. If you are the parent, coerce your kids to join you in a fun activity.

Don't wait...

Don't Put off those Magical Moments with Your Parents or Your Kids. With Covid lasting longer than any of us expected, vaccination status curtailing travel and indoor dining, my advice, which has nothing to do with business, is to make plans today, and you'll get back to work with a big smile. Bringing joy and wonder to my mom, armed me with a new sense of purpose, and I dove right back into my job when I returned home after a two day break, back in February 2018.

Since my mother became a widow for the second time in 2012, she struggled with typical issues of a woman in her 80's. Sad as she was to be alone, she has remained positive, working part-time in the travel industry, keeping busy with family and friends, going on cruises and various trips, continually staying intellectually stimulated and all while being a devoted fan of the Miami Heat.

I never knew her to pay attention to sports (other than tennis) when I was growing up or even in my adulthood, but in the last ten years of her life, she developed a passion for professional basketball! This was no ordinary hobby; she was obsessed. Yelling at the TV, often rushing me off the phone when she was watching the Heat. Reciting news about the players and coaches like they were her buddies. She was hooked!

My mother slowed down considerably in her last two years, after losing two of her closest friends, but she never failed to watch her basketball games. If she had social plans or was under the weather, she taped the games and she read the daily sports pages for the recap. She even clipped out articles to send to a friend who is a fan overseas, because he could not get the games on tv.

She lived alone and over 1,000 miles away, so we did not get to see each other frequently. In 2016 she said she would like to attend a Miami Heat game with me, and I said I would try to find time to fly down and go with her. I flew down several times a year for her various surgical proceedures, birthdays, holidays and funerals, so I was wracking up a lot of bonus miles, but I did not make time to attend a game; I was not a fan and thought it was extravagant to spend $2,000 for a 2 day trip. One of my college friends, a season ticket holder, offered me two of his seats over the last two years, but we could never schedule a date that worked and the seasons slipped by. Another year passed, we considered some dates, but I begged off, saying I was too busy.

So my mom called in January 2018, to say she was not taking no for an answer. She called the box office, got two tickets for a game in February and I would only be away two nights. I explained that I was busy heading to an Inman News real estate conference in NYC and then a few days after returning home, I was due to pack up and move out of my office into a larger space. The timing was not ideal, but she was persuasive and I acquiessed. I booked a plane ticket for a 48 hour trip, and figured I would worry about unpacking my office when I returned. She managed to convince someone in the box office to give us a break on the price and provide wheel chair access (because at the time, my mom was awaiting knee replacement surgery) and she was unable to walk.

On the afternoon I arrived, February 7, 2018, we learned that one of her all-time favorite players Dwyane Wade, had been traded back to Miami and he would be playing at the game we were to attend the next night. My mom was so excited she had to take a tranquilizer to calm down! Everywhere we went, to the market, filling the tank with gas, Dunkin' Donuts, lunch at the famous Joe's Stone Crab Restaurant in Miami, she told strangers we were gong to the Heat game and Dwyane was back! She was like a kid on her way to Disneyland! It would be our first time ever, attending a pro-basketball game, and I decided to make her a sign to hold up at the game. We booked a hotel room in Miami and I bought a piece of oaktag, clipped newspaper articles and used a fat black Sharpie pen to write the letters on the sign. We met my dear friends from college for dinner in Miami, who were also going to the game, and off we went to a night of UNBELIEVABLE EXCITEMENT!

We had amazing seats, they won the game and we not only made it on TV with our sign that night, but we also made the ESPN Instagram post for the game. The man who worked for the Heat, who helped my mom get the tickets, came to say hello and we took a photo together. He helped to fulfill her dream and the game truly inspired me. While it was an expensive, crazy couple of days rushing between Boca and Miami, with me fielding phone calls from my office and home, I know the stars aligned for me to attend that game and to witness D-Wade on his return to the Heat. I am so thankful to Sam O'Babatunde fo making it happen. We vowed to go again after her knee surgery.

She died 8 months later.

As the year winds down and we look back on what we did and did not do, my advice is simple; don't put off spending time doing something fun with your aging parents or your kids. Make it happen before the end of the year and take lots of photos and videos. Here is the clip that Sam saw on ESPN's Instagram and sent to me the next day.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BfBTsc5FmHh/