פירוש על קידושין 62:9

He said to him: Rav Asi [said] to Rabbi Elazar, "Perhaps, God forbid, Rabbi Yochanan is angry with me."

What a great and tragic story—R. Assi is being pursued by his overbearing mother, who wants to marry a man who looks just like her son (kind of sad). So he runs away to Eretz Yisrael, but she chases after him. He then wants to go greet her, maybe save her some of the difficulty of the travel. But now we have an opportunity to hear of the relative value of honoring one’s parents vis a vis remaining in the land of Israel. He gets permission to leave, but before he gets to her, his mother has died. And now he has lost out on both counts—he did not get to fulfill the mitzvah of honoring his mother, and he left the land of Israel.
The relationship between parents and children is surely the most difficult relationship of many people’s lives.