Before you read too far, this is going to be a deeply personal post.Where do I begin? As many of you know I’ve been working on a UWP app to help query tuning in SQL Server and showed quite a few people an alpha of the tool at PASS Summit. My plans were to have the tool completed and published to the Windows Store by Christmas.

Shortly after Summit my Mom passed away unexpectedly. Since that time I’ve taken a bit of a break and have intended to post more blogs though they never seemed to get written.  Blogging takes quite a bit of work and determination and I truly salute bloggers out there like Kenneth Fisher (@SQLStudent144).

My Mom raised me from 8th grade on and because she was a single mother we didn’t get to spend much time together to become close. In fact, we really weren’t too close at all. My oldest son unfriended her on Facebook when he was twelve because her posts on his embarrassed him. She’d often call or text me at 3 AM to say it’s raining in some random city. In all fairness she knew I traveled for work and she just wanted to reach out but these things are easy to push away from. At the funeral, my siblings all shared similar stories and it’s no wonder why only my youngest sibling was close to her.

It took a few days to set in and then it hit me. I told my wife I’d never be able to resync with her to let her know we all do weird things but we still love each other.  She would often do strange things. For example: every year my mom would put wrapped chocolates in our shoes for St Nick’s day. I’ve always thought it silly and have not done this for my own children; however, this year we added this odd act to the tradition.

I suppose all I can say is that this has been difficult to write but also therapeutic. I want her to know that she was a great mom and I hope she felt so. I wish everyone in the #sqlfamily the best and want you to know that it’s never a good time to wait if you want to tell someone you care. Reach out to them and give a hug.

Thanks all