She loves the beach.
Salt and sun and the slow hush of water. Florida has been pulling at her for years, and next year she finally goes.
A letter to my mum
Jeneen Surad Hagerty
17 August 1966 · Forever loved
A letter to my mum
17 August 1966 · Forever loved
i. an opening
For years you have been writing me letters titled "A Letter to My Son." Some came on milestones, some came quietly, on no occasion at all - and all of them I still have. This is me, finally, trying to write back, in the only way a tech nerd really knows how.
It hasn't always been easy. But there has never, not once, been a doubt about how completely you love me. Being your only son has meant being the entire world to one person, and that is a kind of luck most people never know they're walking around with.
So this is your corner of the internet now. A small, slow place I'll keep adding to - photos, memories, the things you love, the people who made you, the dogs we have loved together. A return favor, decades late, in the format I know how to give.
With all my love,
your son
a small grammar of you
ii. who she is
Salt and sun and the slow hush of water. Florida has been pulling at her for years, and next year she finally goes.
All animals, really. She does not eat them. She would rescue every one of them if she could, and she has the heart to prove it.
Thrillers and horror - but only by good authors. She has taste, and she does not pretend otherwise.
The Silence of the Lambs for as long as I can remember. Hamnet, more recently - and she was right about it, of course. Usually is.
She left when she needed to and she made sure all of us - every one of us - found our way back to each other. That took grace. And Patience.
Faster than most of my classmates' parents, anyway. Fast enough to write my school projects while I talked, on the giant beige tower on the back porch.
iii. where you come from
I never had the chance to meet them. But I have the next-best thing - I have you. And every time I look at you, I get a small peak at the people who made you possible.
Your mother - Barbara. Your father - Marty. Both gone before I had the chance to know them. Marty went in 1973, when you were still small. Barbara stayed until 1995 - the year before I was born, by a hair I will never stop being sad about.
I never got to sit across a table from them. Never got to hear them say my name. That is a quiet kind of grief, and one I know is yours far more than it is mine.
But I have the proof of them. I have you. And that is the kind of proof that makes the case completely. Whoever they were, they were good people. The evidence is the woman who raised me. There is no doubt about it.
your mother · barbara
Energetic. The life of the party, at least by every account. A smile that walked into a room before she did, and the kind of presence the room remembers after she's left it.
She left in 1995 - a year and a few months from a meeting that almost was. Everything you give me, you got from her first.
your father · marty
A handyman by trade. Equipment manager for the Cleveland Browns by Sundays. The kind of multi-faceted man good men of that era often were - the one who fixed everything that broke and stood on the sideline when the lights came on.
That's where the Browns devotion comes from - handed down from a man I never met, to the woman who raised me, to me. We root for them because of him. Even when they break our hearts. Especially when they break our hearts.
your sisters
The youngest - that was you. The one called Nini. Three women cut from (sort of) the same cloth, sharing life experiences and sticking with each other through thick and thin. Still together as one unit.
And, this year, a fourth. Denise - the oldest, in Texas. Found late, found anyway. Sometimes a story doesn't end the way you thought; sometimes it gets bigger.
iv. evidence
A scrapbook in progress - I'll keep adding as I find them.
"I love you more today than yesterday,
- your line. every single time.
but not as much as tomorrow."
Born in Ohio near the lake. Raised in Gloucester. A bit of Sarasota with Barb - There has always been water in your story. And soon, some sunshine.
v. memories
Small ones, mostly. Those are the ones that last.
Cousin David's house first - too many cousins to name, all of them ours. NORAD Santa tracker glowing on the screen Then home. One present each before bed.
I track satellites for a living now, with that same NORAD system, for the company I built. Some loops close themselves.
Florida every chance we got. Busch Gardens. Sea World. Ripley's, where I dipped my hand in water the temperature of the North Atlantic the night the Titanic went down.
You and Dad told me it was illegal to blow bubbles in my chocolate milk in the state of Florida. I believed you until I was twenty-eight.
The giant beige tower on the back porch. Microsoft Word. Clip art.. You at the keys, fingers flying; me pacing, talking. We made every deadline. You never, not once, made me feel slow.
(I'm faster now. HAHA.)
After you quit smoking, when you had to drive me and Sean Curtin to school because we kept missing the bus. You would lock eyes with whoever cut you off like a woman with unfinished business in the parking lot. Sean and I watched in awe. Its been passed down, surely.
I came home and announced, very seriously, to you and Nana Judy that I had learned the two worst words in the English language. Then I said them. Put quite the giggle into the two of you.
I miss Nana. Even when she gave you grief, I always knew it was love. Always love.
Down to the Yankees in the eighth, at Fenway. They cued up Sweet Caroline. The man in the row in front of us stood up and screamed "SHUT UP, NEIL" at the speakers. You and I were on the floor.
The Sox came back. They won. The greatest game I have ever been to.
Bruins vs. Stars at the Garden. Gloves came off one second in. By the four-second mark, three separate fights had happened. Bergeron and Lucic each scored before the first minute and a half was up. Final: Bruins 6, Stars 3.
We still talk about it like the puck has not yet dropped.
There was a party I threw on a trip you should have been able to take in peace. Oops. The lawyer was a special kind of useless.
We laugh about it now. Even at the time you showed some sort of love. Whatever it was, it was exactly what made me the kind of person who could grow out of it... Somewhat. I am a live-and-learn person. You taught me that, by deciding I was one before I was.
I saw you cry. Dad was probably ready to home humming. You held on a little too long, and a little too tight, the way you always have. I have never forgotten that.
Years of them. I have them all. The most recent one came when Caryn and I packed for Texas. You were not happy, but happy for us.
You have visited more than anyone. You are only ever a plane ride away. That is its own kind of love letter.
vi. the pack
They are all borrowed, every one of them. The grief comes only because we loved them so much. We never deserved them. We got them anyway.
the first · in memory
The first dog. Mum and Dad had her when I was a baby. A good girl, but an eater. She ate my first birthday cake. She ate sofas. She ate sheetrock walls. She drank seawater that came back out like a hose.
Always missed. Always the original.
the basenji · in memory
Genetically programmed to herd lions across the Sahara, somehow stuck in our kitchen. She jumped on beds and peed - for joy, for grievance, for sport. She always smelled.
Dad understood her. She understood Dad. The rest of us tried our best.
the sweetest · in memory
The shyest, gentlest dog we ever had. Full of love, full of patience. Kenya's best friend - even when Kenya did not deserve one.
the loyal · in memory
Loved his people, fiercely. Terrified of everyone else. He had a list, and the list was always correct - Know what I mean?. A judge of character with no false positives (besides Sydney that one time).
"biggins" · the shortest story
A plot hound puppy with too much hope for the time he was given. He chewed Kamby's ears until they were swollen, leaving his mark before he left us.
He is playing fetch in heaven, learning tricks with Bauer and Kamby and Kenya and Retta. We did not deserve him. We got him anyway, for a little while, and we will always be grateful.
the wild one
A pitbull with too much love and too much energy for any room he enters. The kind of love that bowls you over and licks your face on the way down.
Talk of a farm where he can run for years has been entered into the official record.
the gentle hunter
A greyhound with the résumé of a fierce predator and the daily routine of a duvet enthusiast. She sleeps. She chews the rug. She is forever bothered, lovingly, by her brother from another mother - Corona.
mine & caryn's
Loyal as ever. An eater, like Retta before him. Whines at the television, always, no matter what is on, with strong and unspecified opinions.
the newest
The crazy baby. Swims in lakes. Chases ducks out of the pool every single morning. Lives more in a single day than most of us live in a week.
Best friend to his older brother Clyde, who tolerates the chaos with the patience of a saint.
We never deserved any of them. We got them anyway.
vii. the things you love
A small visual catalogue of the things that make you, you.
viii. her favorites
on the page
on the screen
in the world
absolutely not
ix. a letter to my mum
I'll add to these the way you added to yours. Some years. The ones that matter.
Mother's Day, May 2026
Mum - I built this for you. It is small and quiet, like a book I can keep adding pages to. I wanted you to have something I made rather than something material, the same way you used to make my school projects on the back porch with yours.
Texas was hard on you, I know. But the year ahead has Florida in it for real this time - your beach, your sun, your long view - and we will be on the next plane every chance we get. The chairs in this picture are waiting for you. The cooler is between them. The whole thing is right there, where you always said it would be. Warmer and happier and as much as you deserve for being the best Mum of all. We love you, we appreciate you always.
Thank you for every "Letter to My Son." Thank you for every year. Thank you for the back porch, and the road rage, and Cousin David's, and the chocolate-milk lie. Thank you for Buzzy. Thank you for sticking up for me even when I had not earned it. You are the one good thing that has not had to be earned.
- Buzzy
Happy Mother's Day, Mum.
There is no one like you. There never was.
Yours, always -
Buzzy
(the name you stole from a kid at the field that has somehow become mine)
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