Scott Simon, a radio host for NPR’s “Weekend Edition,” gave his mother, Patricia Simon Newman Gilband, a very public farewell. 
 
 For the last few days, Simon, who has more than a million followers on Twitter, has been tweeting odes and observations from his mother’s bedside in an intensive-care unit in a Chicago hospital, where she was dying. 
 
 “It is a remarkable and moving moment,” fellow NPR host Peter Sagal of “Wait Wait ... Don’t Tell Me!” tweeted Saturday. “Pay attention.” 
 
 On Monday at 7:17 p.m., Simon tweeted twice: "The heavens over Chicago have opened and Patricia Lyons Simon Newman has stepped onstage." 
 
 "She will make the face of heaven shine so fine that all the world will be in love with night." 
 
 A few of Simon’s earlier hearfelt tweets are below. 
 
 Gilband appeared with her son on NPR in 2008, when the pair bantered as she shared stories from her life in Chicago. “Well, I think the thing I have learned from you -- number one, you're a beautiful companion,” Gilband told Simon then. “You've always been a lot of fun. No matter what age, we all got -- we were compatible. We got along beautifully. … You've never lost your childlike sense of enthusiasm.” 
 
 I just want to say that ICU nurses are remarkable people. Thank you for what you do for our loved ones. — Scott Simon (@nprscottsimon) July 23, 2013 
 
 My mother in ICU sees Kate & Will holding baby and tears: "Every baby boy is a little king to his parents. " So I tear too. — Scott Simon (@nprscottsimon) July 23, 2013 
 
 Watching ChiSox vs Tigers game in ICU w/ mother. Score not improving MY blood pressure. — Scott Simon (@nprscottsimon) July 25, 2013 
 
 Bless all ICU nurses who are getting people through pain & anxieties tonight. — Scott Simon (@nprscottsimon) July 25, 2013 
 
 All hospitals should have roll-out chairs in ICU rooms so loved ones can spend night w/ patients & not sleep on floor. @NMHnews — Scott Simon (@nprscottsimon) July 25, 2013 
 
 I am getting a life's lesson about grace from my mother in the ICU. We never stop learning from our mothers, do we? — Scott Simon (@nprscottsimon) July 25, 2013 
 
 In line at hospital Starbucks. Dancing in the Streets comes on. Line begins to sing, "They're dancin' in Chi-caw-go!" — Scott Simon (@nprscottsimon) July 25, 2013 
 
 Tnx for all but wishes for my mother in ICU. Her anthem, more than ever, is But I'm Still Here. She inspires us all. — Scott Simon (@nprscottsimon) July 26, 2013 
 
 Our friend Wen Huang dropped by ICU to read to my mother from his book. She smiles, "Haven't we had a lovely day?" — Scott Simon (@nprscottsimon) July 26, 2013 
 
 I consider this a good sign: mother sez when time comes, obit headline should be Three Jewish Husbands, But No Guilt. — Scott Simon (@nprscottsimon) July 27, 2013 
 
 My mother drifts to sleep listening to Nat's Unforgettable. I keep things light, but moments like this hard, if sweet. — Scott Simon (@nprscottsimon) July 27, 2013 
 
 Thanks for all good wishes. Mother says, "We can get through this, baby. The hardest part we'll be for you when it's over" — Scott Simon (@nprscottsimon) July 27, 2013 
 
 -I tell her, "You've given me strength to carry it." She's reciting White Cliffs of Dover now, becoming 14 before my eyes. 

 Topics: Video, Twitter, Scott Simon, NPR 
 
 There isn’t one right or wrong way to let someone go. There’s no rule book. But in America, our cultural squeamishness around death and dying tends to trump even our often uncontrollable impulse to document our experiences across multiple social media platforms. We’ll let the world see what we ate for dinner, tweet out about the boredom of a traffic jam, yet clam up over the big stuff. So what’s unfolded over the last several days, as NPR’s “Weekend Edition” host Scott Simon tweeted through the end of his mother’s life, has been something different, even in our information-saturated age. 
 
 He started casually – a reference more than a week ago to visiting his mother in the ICU and telling her of the royal birth. But as days passed — and if you’ve ever been through it, you know how those long, grueling, often monotonous end-of-life days can unfold – his tweets increased in their descriptiveness, capturing moments quotidian and profound. He shared his disgust at cafeteria deep-fried onion rings, and about how buying dental floss can be an act of love and faith. Mostly, he talked about his mom. He revealed “a tough Irish showgirl who doesn’t quit on those she loves,” a woman who spent her final days cracking one-liners and singing with her son. He articulated, with raw vulnerability, that conflicted feeling of “I don’t know how we’ll get through these next few days. And, I don’t want them to end.” He talked simply about just holding her hand, and wondering why he’d ever, as a little boy, stopped holding her hand. 
 
 It was, for many of Simon’s 1.2 million followers, an intense glimpse into an experience this is usually marked by deep secrecy. On the “Today” show Tuesday, he said that he and his mother weren’t “looking death in the eye but life in the face.” And, he added, “I think my mother has a lot to say to a lot of people and I’m not embarrassed to share it.” 
 
 For some, that lack of embarrassment has been jarring to the point of criticism. A Chicago Tribune commenter declared, “Some things should remain private, no matter how much you like Twitter.” And a friend of mine – one who has recently had plenty of personal experience with mortality – on Monday called Simon’s tweets “the most sordid, opportunistic thing I’ve ever heard.” But as someone who’s tweeted about her own cancer diagnoses and surgeries, and about the gut-punching losses of way too many loved ones, I have nothing but awe for the way Simon has managed to encapsulate the experience of loss with such economy and eloquence. He’s made an often-taboo topic accessible and open, by being willing to share it with such frankness.
– The mother of NPR's Scott Simon died yesterday, which his million-plus followers on Twitter already know because he took them through her final days in the ICU one tweet at a time, reports the LA Times. The tweets ranged from the mundane (watching baseball with his mom in the room, complaints about hospital food) to the poignant: "I am getting a life's lesson about grace from my mother in the ICU," he wrote on July 25. "We never stop learning from our mothers, do we?" And then, yesterday: "The heavens over Chicago have opened and Patricia Lyons Simon Newman has stepped onstage." As a result, the host of Weekend Edition Saturday has taken his share of criticism from those who think some things aren't suited for Twitter. But most of the reaction is more along the lines of this from Mary Elizabeth Williams at Salon: "As someone who’s tweeted about her own cancer diagnoses and surgeries, and about the gut-punching losses of way too many loved ones, I have nothing but awe for the way Simon has managed to encapsulate the experience of loss with such economy and eloquence," she writes. "He’s made an often-taboo topic accessible and open, by being willing to share it with such frankness." Click for her full post.