I am my mother’s daughter.

This is one of my favorite pictures of my mother taken over twenty years ago.  I just the love the way it captures her beautiful profile.  She has always been this beautiful.  And her beauty goes deeper than anyone I have ever known.

I really can’t imagine life without my mother.  I share Abe Lincoln’s sentiments when he said “Everything I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.”  While I am certain she made mistakes as a mother, I can honestly say, I cannot recall one.  Perhaps, that’s because she invested much more good than she withdrew bad.  I have been blessed beyond measure because of her.

My love for the written word is largely due to her exposing me to books at a very young age.  I can still remember as a little girl heading to the Flint River Library to join other children in book readings.  I can also recall the excitement I felt each week as I brought home my borrowed books.  She introduced me to books, and I was able to enter into a world where I knew anything was possible.  It was this love that ignited my love to write.

She endured through my stubborn resolve to not wear socks where the lace overlapped.  (And, as noted yesterday with my little Anna, I know exactly what she must have felt.)  When I wrote my first song about a falling star, she assured me it was top 40 material, regardless of the fact that it included a line about killing a bumble bee.  She let me write and mail a letter to Brett Butler of the Atlanta Braves and convinced me that he read it.  She loved me still after I screamed “I hate you.”  She made my sixteenth birthday truly sweet.  If she told me once, she told me a thousand times how proud she was of me when I graduated from college.  She squeezed me tight the day before I married.  She held me close the day I got divorced.  And she rubbed my head the day I gave birth to my son.  And, then, she held him, too. 

Then, one day she watched us hop aboard an airplane with the last of our belongings and venture off into new adventures.  While she hurt inside, she smiled and still said, “I am so happy for you.” 

She is a wonderful Nan.

She is my rock and my best friend. 

She is my dear mother. 

I hope one day my children love me as much as I love her.

Happy Mother’s Day.