My mother died this past summer. She was 88 and in failing health, and had been in a nursing home for the previous year and a half. That's not where this story begins, or ends. It's just a signpost for context.

This weekend while going through some old boxes in the garage I came upon some 'memorabilia'. Yes, a dreaded 'crap box'. This one, as it turned out, contained articles and clippings that had mentioned me and my writing over the past 18 years. Various copies of Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Entertainment Weekly, NY Times, and so on. But among this collection of rarefied 'journalistic' air there was something else.

Copies of two articles from the Morris Sun, a small newspaper located where my mother grew up in Morris, Minnesota. The first one, from 1992, said that a former resident's son had sold his first novel. The next, from a few years later, recounted that a former resident's son had sold film rights to his fourth novel. Each article mentioned that the novelist's mother had written to tell her hometown paper about these successes. She was proud of me, and wanted to share what I had accomplished with the people 'back home'.

My mother was already in the nursing home when Knowing, based on my original script, was released. Her health was too fragile for her to go see it, but on the wall in her room at the nursing home she had attached the full page advertisement for the movie, and would tell everyone to look and see her son's name on it.

I know my good fortune brought her joy. Remembering that brings me joy.