Early Sunday morning I got the call I had been dreading. My mom passed away after a 3 and 1/2 year battle with cancer. I knew it was coming. They had stopped treatment and she was in hospice care. This didn’t help at all. It doesn’t matter if you are expecting it, it’s still not easy. I’m having more trouble with it now that I am back home and not surrounded by people or thinking about traveling.

I just deleted two paragraphs I had written that was a weird account of what I did the days following the news. I can sum it up with I tried to do what I could to not dwell on my grief. Travel and getting ready to travel helped. On the visitation and funeral day the constant presence of other people helped even though they were all either random family members I had not…