Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

My mom died in 1994 so I have spent a number of Mother’s Days just feeling sad.  This year I am grateful.  Here is what I would say to her.

Thank you for teaching me how to hide food.  Remember how you would put those cookies in strange places so that we couldn’t find them?  In truth we always knew where they were and we would be helping unload the groceries and be like, “I’ll just put the chocolate chip cookies away in the dropped ceiling, where you usually put them, Mom.”  So maybe you weren’t that good at hiding food.  But I am increasingly feeling like there are people coveting every morsel of chocolate I eat, and I need to figure out a way to hide it.  Thanks for making me feel like this is normal.

Thank you for encouraging me to wear lipstick, even when I had to play a tuba at a band concert.  You said that I was a reflection of you, and now I get it.  (And it was actually a reflection of me, but one that you were trying to make look suitable.  Sorry to say that I still don’t wear lipstick, though.)

Thank you for teaching me how it is entirely possible to cut up your bank card in front of a teller in order to make a point.

Thank you for dressing me in that strange harem-like red pin-striped number to do my speech on “reincarnation” in grade 5. 

Thank you for laughing at my jokes.

Thank you for teaching me how to be a friend.

Thank you for yelling “I’m trying to take a S&%T!” at us through the bathroom door.   Seriously, Mom, this same thought has gone through my mind so many times in the last few years.  I was wondering if I should post this on a blog, and if it would bother you.  But the thing is that this is one of my most useful parenting memories because every time I feel like this I can remember that you must have felt this way too!  (And as I remember it, you only said it that once.)

Thank you for teaching me to be brazen if people seem to be taking advantage of me.  I like to apply this to door-to-door scammers.

Thank you for fighting breast cancer so courageously.  Even when you were sick you still put us first, and you were such an incredible model of strength and tenacity.

Thank you for sending me to camp.

Thank you for giving Noah your dimples.

Thank you for teaching me how to make squares and spinach dip and for fostering a love of soft ice cream.

Thank you for being an incredible mom.  I miss you every single day.