Dear Mom,
There was a day about 30 years ago on which everything in your world, changed. A pregnancy test; two pink lines; a missed period. Your world probably stopped as you wrapped your mind around living not only for yourself, but also for the tiny human forming inside you.
From that day forward, your identity changed for eternity. For the rest of your life, you will be a mom.
You didn‘t know that the tiny formation of cells and DNA within you was the first of five daughters, that one would be adopted, that you’d never have a boy. Yes, you would have smiled or maybe laughed if you had known: the probability of having four daughters in a row is somewhere around five in a hundred. You would go against the odds in every way.
You rowed competitively until your belly (me) interfered with your stroke and you breastfed me between phases of your triathlons. Before I was born and before I was aware of my surroundings, you took me sailing, rowing, swimming, and competing.
You may not have guessed that your daughters would be teachers, doctors, accountants, or work in the White House. You would know, though, that your example would mold and shape us into the women we would become.
Since your identity change on that fateful day three decades ago, you became an unsung hero—performing thankless tasks with often zero recognition.
This list is by no means comprehensive, but Mom, I’d like to thank you.
Thank you for reading to us every night, growing up. Always a work of literature followed by a devotional, and nearly always conducted while us girls folded the family laundry, you taught us to be readers and learners.
Thank you for pursuing your athletic accomplishments. You modeled goal-setting and self-discipline when you trained daily for and competed in marathons and rowing regattas.
Thank you for making us work hard. You did not offer handouts, and I’m grateful for the times I paid for my own riding lessons, rode my bike to my jobs, and worked at a cabbage farm. You instilled in us a sense of creativity and urgency to work hard for what we wanted.
Thank you for serving your community. Jane Austen wrote, “every neighborhood should have a great lady” and I’d argue the same for a town. Our hometown has a lady who paints at the homeless shelter, creates clubs and teams for sports that didn’t previously exist within a 50 mile radius, helps start churches, and founds a school. That’s you, Mom. Not to mention, you have dinner on the table for Dad every night.
Thank you for modeling unconditional love. At times (and more times than we’d ever like to admit), us girls have been terrible, ugly, and ungrateful. You don’t take our failures upon yourself personally; instead you gently guide us with your wisdom. You rise before the sun, and you pray for us.
For all these reasons and hundreds more, we love you, Mom.
Happy Mother’s Day.
