This is beautiful, Barry and it also pulled on my heartstrings. I've been estranged from my son for several years now, yet have never given up hoping that perhaps he'd come to understand how much I love him and always will. He had a difficult childhood with an alternately loving, then violently abusive Marine Corp father who died a few years ago from ALS, brought on by the chemical burn pits in Iraq. While my son worships his father's memory, he has no idea what I had to do to keep us all alive, including grabbing the steering wheel to prevent him from driving us all into a lake one dark evening, with both of our three year olds in the back seat. My son doesn't remember the terrible events of his childhood, though I'll carry broken bones and restorative plastic surgery to the grave from being a survivor.
Barry, I feel strongly that your mother still loves you and would be thrilled to hear from you again. Please make it happen, because your own story is one that also gives me hope.