This is a day to forget the invisible assassin.
It's a day to smile that professional sports are getting closer to returning, and the NBA and Major League Baseball will never have been more popular.
Although NCAA President Mark Emmert has said for colleges, no students no football.
This is a day to celebrate mom or at the very least, her memory.
Our mom died last September after a long, hard battle with a broken back.
She shattered the L-3 vertebrae in June and didn't complain for more than three weeks other than to ask for ibuprofen.
This is the same lady who broke her hip, and the nurse asked her on a scale of 1-10 with 10 the worst what was her level of pain?
Mom had no medications in her at that point and she held up four fingers.
Mom was 96, her dementia was bad and getting worse, but she still knew her children and grandchildren.
If she was alive today, she would not understand why we were not allowed to visit because she was visited daily. My lifelong friend Curtis Eubanks, who spent hours each week with his own mom at a different nursing home, would go see her and hold her hand.
One evening, out of the clear blue she asked: "When is Curtis coming back?'
Not everyone is as blessed to have a mom like ours; we know that.
She could be sweet, loving and tough as nails.
Guarantee you none of us would have been going anywhere without a mask these days. Mom was long on common sense.
She loved sports. She played high school basketball.
She followed the University of Arkansas Razorbacks.
She once made dad pull the car over because we were getting a good reception on the radio, and she wanted to hear the final minutes of a football game.
That was in the 1960's, and dad didn't argue with her about that.
Throughout the years, athletes on every level have made a point to take care of their mom.
Joe Kleine, Keith Jackson, Jamaal Anderson, Bobby Portis, Shawn Andrews and Darren McFadden did, and that is just the tip of the iceberg.
It is moms, and some dads no doubt, who pick us up when we are down.
When we are young, they do our laundry and cook our meals. They would choose our friends if we would let them.
For years, cameras would zoom in on a football player, and he'd mouth into the camera, "Hi mom."
There was a reason.
In more than 40 years of covering sports in Arkansas, it has been a privilege to meet many of the parents of the athletes who were covered.
It would be impossible to count how many times a dad was seen trying to coach from the stands until he got the tug on his shirt and the look from the mom that had him sit down and shut his mouth.
This is the first mother's day for us without mom, but we aren't the only ones.
Anne Jansen Broadwater lost her mom to the virus, as have thousands of others, so today will have some long minutes of sadness. But overall, this is a day to celebrate mom.
Especially if yours is still alive.
Facebook started filling with tributes to moms yesterday.
Today, a visit, or at the very least a call with unlimited minutes should be made.
Again, not everyone has been blessed as much as most of us, and for those there is sadness.
Both of my sisters will be honored by their children and grandchildren today, no matter that one is in the hospital and the other in self-isolation.
Mom was a role model for my sisters, who always put family first in their lives.
This is not just another day.
It is a day to forget how trying these times are and celebrate the person who gave you life and in most cases, their lives.
Sports on 05/10/2020