Dear Mom,

It occurs to me that May will bring my first Mother's Day without you.

It's only been a few weeks since you passed away, and a lot has happened since then. I remember the day when doctors told you that you had terminal cancer and gave you only 90 days to live. I guess they didn't know yet how strong and determined you were. A southern belle born in Arkansas, you weren't going to surrender that easily. No, that would have been like the Confederacy surrendering to the Union! Instead, you far exceeded your life expectancy, giving your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren three more years to learn from you how to live and how to die with courage.

I hope you don't mind that I share this letter with TCBM readers. I know that most of them didn't know you, but watching you fight that despicable disease profoundly affected my outlook on life, and perhaps there's a lesson in that for all of us.

Others have told me that when one loses a parent, especially a last parent, it's normal to have feelings of loneliness. I feel like an orphan, Mom, which surprises me. I guess I still needed the comfort of a parent in my life, even as an adult. I'll admit that we didn't have the greatest mother-son relationship, but I feel emptiness and grief now that you're gone. I often reflect on whether I spent enough time with you, or whether it was "quality" time.

On the other hand, the outpouring of sympathy that we received after your death was overwhelming and is filling up the emptiness. The condolences, donations, cards, food, and kind gestures, many from people who didn't even know you, were also a wake-up call. I think you'd be surprised by the number of people who care about me and who are my friends. I've realized that I have a huge "family" in my community, and it's humbling. I wonder how good I've been to that family, as well.

But, Mom, the most important thing I want you to know is that I realize I have unfinished business in my own life. You probably knew it, but I didn't. I have been living my life out of balance, spending too much time and effort on my work and not enough on the other things in life, including my family, friends, church, community, and physical health. I keep thinking about something that I once heard our church's minister say, that in the thousands of final blessings he had given over the years at the bedsides of the dying, not one person had ever said, "I wish I had worked a little more."

Although no CEO ever talks about it, living an unbalanced life has implications for executive leadership. You saw me do it, Mom, putting so much effort into being up-to-the-minute with my staff and clients to the point of micromanaging. The example of a workaholic leader speaks so loudly that associates believe the expectation is for them to do the same. After a while, everyone in the organization is stressed-out and tired. How can we be making good decisions this way?

Now, I realize that I'm writing about something I haven't been good at practicing myself – but that's never stopped me before! This is not easy for me, and I hope my readers will do what I say and not what I've done. I'm sharing this letter because I believe that if more leaders applied the same diligence to their personal lives that they do to their professional lives, our businesses, religious organizations, communities, and nation would be better off.

I used to think that a good executive had a finger on the pulse of the business every waking moment. We put expectations upon ourselves that our lives must be dedicated 100 percent to our businesses, or else we'll fail. But if we fail at home or in other parts of our lives, haven't we still failed?

I've often suggested to leaders that they take time to step back from their businesses to look at things strategically, to see the big picture. Perhaps we all need to do that in our personal lives as well. I hope this letter urges other leaders to take inventory of their priorities and assess where they spend their time and energy. So many, especially in the executive world, are preoccupied by money, success, climbing career and social ladders, and accumulating stuff that we really don't need. I'm not saying that success is bad. I'm just seeing now that obtaining success at the expense of the other important things in life is bad.

Mom, you know that I especially have had trouble living my life in balance after Dad died when I was a teen. I believed that my purpose in life was to support my grandparents, you, and my brother and sister. That expectation carried over to my adult life. When my kids were little, I thought my only role was to be the family's ATM. People close to me worked hard to convince me that my kids wanted time with me, not the money. Now, as an entrepreneur with my own business, I feel responsible for the livelihoods of my associates and often my clients, extending my "family" obligations beyond reasonable expectations. Eventually, my self-imposed expectations suck the gas out of me – and the price of gas goes up significantly the older I get.

Men, including myself, seem to have difficulty with the softer sciences of life and tend to shy away from ministers, psychologists, et cetera. We think that seeking their advice shows weakness, that it's not "macho." Well, after seeing the interaction between you and the hospice professionals, I've come to believe that that's a bunch of horsepucky! You were a strong-willed and proud person, and your strength of character showed when you realized that you needed help and decided to accept it.

I'm not trying to tell others how they should live. It's just that it's been a very difficult experience to watch your life eroded by cancer, and it's given me a different perspective on my own life. I feel like I've been given an opportunity to change so that I don't leave this life with unfinished business, and I'm going to make sure I take care of those things. One way I'm doing that is by reading The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren. You and I have not been outwardly spiritual, but this book is helping me figure out what my purpose is on this earth.

Since your passing, Mom, I've learned that there is more to life than what most of us are living. We are the hamsters on the flywheel, working so seriously to compete with others, but not really getting anywhere. I've recently explained it to other people by asking them to imagine that they have only 10 minutes to live. I ask them to think about the letter they'd write to family and friends in those remaining minutes, listing unfinished business, things they regret not getting done. I don't think many business-leader friends of mine would write down that they wish they could have exceeded company revenue goals, or that earnings per share would have been greater.

You know my good friend, Doug, who has always led a balanced life. He once said to me, "Mark, you shouldn't take life so seriously, because you're not going to get out of it alive anyway." I now realize, Mom, that this is the lesson I'm going to take away from your passing, because before I know it, I'll be joining you. In the meantime, I'm committed to taking care of my own unfinished business.

Eternally grateful,

Your son, Mark.