Today is my mom’s 70th birthday! She is so many things to me and touched the lives of countless others. We all have our favorite memories of laughing, crying or just having fun together. My gift this year is to celebrate life and acknowledge the greatness of my mom! She’s been living well these past few years free from pain, free from worry and stresses of everyday life. She’s experiencing the best retirement ever, you see she’s been with Jesus since 2012. I was anger for a long while because I wasn’t ready to live life without her. I didn’t feel prepared. What I’ve learned over the past few years is that she isn’t completely gone, as long as I live and breathe she is a part of me. She will always be my mother, death does not take that privilege from any of us. There’s not a single day that I do not think of her, she’s in a song I hear, I recall moments of wise words she had spoken to me, I feel her character or moral fibers woven within my humanity. She was strong, resilient, caring, determined, honest, trustworthy, gentle and stoic, some might even call her a “spitfire!” I think she would like being called that. I like to celebrate my mother and do so very often. Keeping her memory alive, allows me not to forget how she made me feel. She was my biggest fan and supporter of anything I set out to do, no matter my talent level in the pursuit. I can’t even begin to calculate the sacrifices she made for me, often I am reminded of the ugly things I said to her during the terrible teenage years of resistance and rebellion. She never wavered in her love for me, she always loved me especially when I was not deserving. There’s a part of me that will never fully understand the bond of mother to daughter, as I will never give birth to a child but from the daughter side to the mother perspective I have love in my heart that is for my mother alone, sometimes it is released in a big tear drop slowing cascading down my cheek…I resist the urge to wipe it away because I need to feel it slide down my cheek as if it’s reaching out to my mom. I catch myself smiling at times as if I’m hearing her tell me to do or not do something…wipe your feet, don’t run in the house, and anyone who knows me will recognize this one…”are you going to sleep all day?” Hahaha!
Mom, Happy Happy Birthday! Thank you for loving me and teaching me to love. ~Your Loving Daughter
Hebrews 12:11 (ESV)”For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
HOPE SEEKER 