To my Mom

Dear Mom,

Today is Mother’s Day, the day we celebrate and honor mothers. And yet I’m not sure words suffice the honor due to you as a mother.

Where to start? Do I make mention that you provided for me a world wherein I never knew want? I don’t mean I didn’t want a new Strawberry Shortcake kid. I mean I never wanted for food, or clothing, or shelter. And if money was tight and you wondered where my needs would come from…well, I never knew that.

Do I start an extensive list of all the things you did to make life easier and enjoyable? It couldn’t have been easy to walk 2-year-old me to the grocery store nearly every day. Or to drive Katey and I to the pool every summer day in 1985 because Daddy Burt’s little house had no AC. Or to put everyone in the car to take me to dance, or gymnastics, or whatever new activity I wanted to try. (Or Katey, or Daniel, or Sally…) You made grocery shopping fun and not a chore. You put sprinkles on our pudding in our fancy pudding cups (can I have those when you die?), you let us get as dirty as we possibly could outside, and you didn’t protest when I insisted on wearing my Mr. Potato Head glasses to the grocery store or Jenny went up and down the aisles singing the bubble song (with dramatic hand motions).

And moving! There aren’t many women in the world who would pack up their house (well, their rented house) every two or three years and move to yet another rented house in some strange place no one had ever heard of before. I was eleven before I saw that you owned artwork in those flat boxes that simply moved from house to house. I only saw you protest one move. If you disliked the others, you never let us see that. Instead, you made our new rooms as nice as possible, encouraged us to make friends and tried to find activities we would enjoy in our new (although temporary) world. And when we cried because it was time to leave our home, and friends, and activities yet again…you were there to hear our sorrows and dry our tears. Now I wonder who comforted you…

For I have learned many things over the past year of being a mom myself. Living in a place where I have no friends or family, I look back and realize you must have been in that same situation over and over again. How did you do it? Did you ever want to stomp your feet and order Dad to move you somewhere you could call home? I don’t know, but I do know you always made sure we had friends, we had things to do, we had a reason to call another new place home. And I hope I’m doing that for Emry now.

A few weeks ago, I had to take Emry to her 1-year-old doctor appointment. So, we had to take Ed to work very early in the morning so we could have the car. After short naps back at home, we started our day with breakfast, I packed us a little lunch, threw the stroller in the car and off we went to the doctor. We then drove to North Park which has a wonderful 5-mile loop to run…and it was a beautiful to day to do it. I enjoyed a good, hard run while Emry relaxed in her stroller, watching the world around her and enjoying a snack of raisins, goldfish and cheerios. When we got back to the car, I got out our little lunch of cheese, crackers and apple slices which we enjoyed on a park bench near the playground, watching the bigger kids play. On our way back home so I could change for work and we could go pick up Ed, I thought that this is something you would do with us. You would take a normal day and do something different, even if it was simple. And it would be fun. Just like my day with Emry.

Maybe I’ll make half the mother you were yet…

Love, Melissa