Copyright ThisNest
Because there was never a shortage of hugs and kisses.
Because she loved me gently, even when I screamed for two straight days on the Greyhound bus with a raw-butt-rash-allergic-reaction to disposable diapers.
Because she made me believe that the whole world celebrated my birthday, and proved it when everyone around me set off their fourth of July fireworks.
Because she meticulously checked through my Halloween candy for razors and pin-pokes…and still let me trick-or-treat well into high school.
Because, as much as I loved the way her hands looked, she always convinced me that mine were even lovelier.
Because she would sit, performance after numerous performance, and smile through every one of our choreographed numbers.
Because when kids at school were mean to me, she let me stay home and play with my baby sisters (ok, sometimes I just hid out and she didn’t know I was home…but whatever).
Because she convinced me that she loved the bruises on bananas…so that I would also eat mine.
Because each and every Thanksgiving, she would take us into the kitchen one at a time, and let us help her make something.
Because Santa put oranges and apples in our stockings.
Because, even when money was short, the Easter Bunny never forgot us.
Because after their restaurant closed at night, she would plant money in the folds of the table benches for us to run around and find…and we all just thought we were getting really lucky.
Because she spanked my ass when I needed it.
Because even though I was the worst on the softball team, she made me feel like I was the best.
Because I got to sit at the bar at Big Lake Lodge, and drink tall fancy hot chocolates.
Because at that same lodge when, with fogged-up goggles and bad eyesight, I accidentally ran over my little sister with a snowmobile, she never made me feel at fault.
Because of that one day, in our kitchen on Wesleyan Drive, when she told me I had lost her trust and that it would take me a long time to win it back…and I did.
Because of that one year, when all I got for my birthday was a much needed swimsuit, and I could see her heart was breaking because of it.
Because, in all of her Mary Kay/Avon knowledge, she showed me at a very young age the proper direction in which to apply my face cream…and to this day I still get ID’d.
Because the morning I started my period, she appeared in the bathroom doorway, confirmed my hope (I was a late bloomer)…and then jumped up and down with me in a memorable hallway celebration.
Because on another morning, when I had to call her from my college two-thousand miles away and tell her I had an eating disorder, she simply said “Come on home, Baby”…and I knew everything would be okay.
Because she gave me five phenomenal little sisters…even if I didn’t really appreciate them all til we were grown.
Because when we though we lost our only brother to a car accident, she mourned her son in the loudest, rawest, most painfully aching kind of way…and I knew how much she loved us.
Because she made some mistakes along the way, and proved to me that love and perfection aren’t necessarily synonymous.
Because when I made mistakes of my own…she forgave me.
Because when others hurt me…she encouraged me to forgive.
Because she always brought my dad his dinner plate…and, by her example, I learned that sometimes servitude is joyful – not degrading.
Because I got to see her nurse her younger babies…and I fell in love with that concept.
Because she coached me, the way only a mother can, through the five times I gave birth myself.
Because her influences can be tasted in everything I cook and bake…and that’s a good thing.
Because when our mountain of kids thought the PB&J crackers they were having for dinner were a fun, snacky treat…she showed up with groceries for our empty cabinets.
Because she has shown up at every birthday, graduation, and milestone for each and every one of our kids, whether they were her biological grandchildren or not.
Because they ALL call her Grandma, and they know they can count on her.
Because my husband calls her Mom, and he knows he can count on her.
Because I wouldn’t be even a sliver, of a fraction, of the tiniest, itsy-bitsy piece of the woman, wife, and mother I am today…without the woman, wife, and mother she exampled for me yesterday.
Because she worked hard…always.
Because, if I called her today, right now, at this very second, with any kind of a need…
She would come.
I LOVE YOU, MAMA. HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY
