Mother’s Day

May 9

Dear Mom,

Happy Mother’s Day

You were introduced to motherhood starting out by carrying twins! Sis and I each weighed six lbs eight ounces! That is a lot to carry, and once we were out of the safest place ever; in your womb, you took care of us, and it was double duty. You had to use different colored diaper pins to tell us apart.

Thank You For Your Courage! You Chose To Keep Every Single One Of Us Kids And Brought Us Into This World So We Had Self-confidence. Each Of Your Five Kids Grew Up To Be Entrepreneurs- fearless when it came to first failing and getting back up and trying again! What a challenge for you mom. Dad worked and went to school, while you stayed home and took care of five children all day by yourself. I know you felt the responsibility to shape us into decent human beings.

Your family lived in Texas, and you were starting your new life in California, where you had no family of your own. You had no washing machine for those diapers and no car to go to the laundry mat. You took the laundry and your babies in a twin stroller, and you managed. The same month of February and a year later, another baby girl was born, and now you had three babies and no car because dad needed it for school and work, and you had a triple duty of washing clothes.

I don't take that brave and motherly decision you made to keep your babies for granted

I love the life I have been blessed with. No matter how often any of us had an issue with you growing up, you carried us, you nurtured us, and later you put up with teen ignorance as we started to stretch our wings and get ready to fly on our own.

I remember all of our friends thinking we were all very outgoing, so that is a lot of energy buzzing around in that tiny house while dad is off at work earning a living to put food on the table and going to college slowly working towards his masters to be able to teach.

I know what a challenge it would be for any mother to be alone with one child, let alone four, and then five kids at home with her husband gone all the time. I want to honor and acknowledge you for this. I know it was hard. I wish as children and especially as teenagers that we could understand what that would be like for you.

Lord have mercy; the years would have been easier for you

Secondly, You stayed at home with five very independent children...wow, is all I can say. Thank you for being the best mother and spreading your love around daily to all of us. It's a daily commitment, one job you cannot abandon even if you are sick. I thank God for you, and I pray for you daily. You taught me any grace and elegance that I have; you taught me everything there is to be a lady. Even though that seems to be going out of style, I hang on to that. It is authentic in my spirit. I have strength too, which I got from you, you never jumped ship with all of us kids, and I know we got a little crazy; and don't I know it because we lived in a small house and all of us were somewhat, How do I say this...Expressive and unique from each other.

We thought we knew everything in our twenties

I can't imagine what that put you through-maybe even in our thirties and forties. Empathy does not come along until we go through raising our own children. I LOVE YOU!

I love the conversations we have now, and I look forward to those deep, meaningful conversations I will have with my daughter someday. We have good conversations, but it's different when I'm listening to a mother who has been tested, tried, and put through patience. I respect you, and I have smartened up now with six grandchildren of my own, and I have to say that you do have a right to say "I told you!" on many things regarding motherhood, but you don't.