Happy Birthday, Mom!

This year on my mother's birthday, I'm feeling a little tongue-tied.

We moved back home this summer, literally back into my parents home, and we've spent our lives here for the last 6 months. During the end of my pregnancy when I was so sick, she was here with me, caring for my boys and me too. We had a baby and there she was, at my side, cheering me on. All during this haze that is having a newborn, she has been here making meals, staying up with the baby when BJ and I were exhausted, shopping, doing laundry, and playing with McKay and Benson, helping them adjust to a new sister.

Before we lived here she would travel to visit us. At great personal expense she would come to Kentucky to spend time with us. I'm pretty sure that most of her work money went toward those trips. She knows that children's memories are short and she wanted a relationship with her grandchildren...and to help her daughter who was struggling to raise two boys far away from home.

In all the years before, she spent minutes, hours, days, and years of her life on me and my siblings. Becoming a mother has given me a deep, abiding and sacred respect for this woman who bore me. I know now that being a mother means giving your life for someone else. Mothering takes everything you have: your physical body, your energy, you plans, your time, your tears, and your heart--every bit of it.

So, saying "happy birthday" seems too trite. But I mean it. And, thank you for making happy birthdays and happy days for me and my siblings for 30 years.

Heavenly Father has taught me about love by giving me you, Mom.

I love you.