I think my mom is the greatest.
Even on mother's day, she's doesn't stop. She keeps going. I try to help, try to get her to sit down and relax.
Come on, Lexy, unload the dishwasher...Mom, you go sit down and relax.
But she doesn't.
Let me make dinner for you, I say. But she's out in the garden, madly weeding and planting and planning, reading books on health and juicing and her new blender. She's thinking about Lexy's graduation. She isn't stopping.
When I have a meltdown (an untimely one) and question the existence of the universe, she doesn't say
It's mothers day...leave me alone. let's talk about this later...I'm too tired. She sits with me, and listens, and closes her eyes. She looks like she's sleeping, but somehow, I feel like she's praying too. She wishes me the best, and tells me that its okay, that I just need to trust. That we aren't supposed to get WHY God did everything he did...that we just need to live, and know that he loves us. that he knows. it baffles me, but she prays, and I feel a little better.
She watches me. When I think I'm not ready, she shows me how far I've come, and how I'm prepared for the next step, even though I don't feel like it.
When I become stagnant, waiting for a wave that's not going to come, she pushes me into the deeper water. She knows I can handle it.
She is herself, but also self-less. Maybe unwillingly. But she's good at it. Is it all the years of practice? Minute after minute after minute of being MOM, that beautiful, hard job of creating and shaping
people.
I think it's a title. She is MOM. her name is Melody. but to me, she is MOM. actually, it's beyond a title. It's a job, without the pay, without the appreciation that a volunteer gets. its somehow worth it, sometimes, and sometimes, you can tell that she just wants to run away, because being a mom is hard work. almost not worth it work. almost too hard. but she does it anyway. somehow.
She is the support when I don't have energy. She's the voice in my head, even when she's not in the same room, that repeats the lessons.
even simple stuff, like
I before E except after C and when it sounds like A is recorded in my mind in her voice, with the lilt that I can't master. And when I start to color the paper-covered table at bible study, her voice takes me back to 2nd grade when she would read aloud our history lesson of Benjamin Franklin or Leif the Lucky, and we would color the picture that went along with it. Or the fictional geography stories as we colored our 6th grade maps of parts of the world.
She's beautiful. Olive-tan skin, wrinkling at the corners of her mouth when she smiles and in between her eyebrows when she's thinking or upset. The way she waves her hands when she talks, her knuckles sticking out a little, with the strong, light fingernails. Sometimes they have dirt under them, from working in the garden. Her dark hair, evenly sprinkled with silver hairs. She keeps talking about getting it colored and highlighted again, but I like it salt-and-pepper. She's more
her that way.
Her quickly-waning obsession with coffee that she has passed on to me and my sisters. She doesn't drink it anymore. Says it gives her hot flashes. But her three daughters love it.
She is my guide to life. She knows so much. Not just academically (she homeschooled one kid from 3rd grade up, and two all the way - K through 12), but spiritually, emotionally, mentally. She knows things that you don't
get until you're older. She just knows. You know how God is all-knowing? He gave some of that trait to moms when he made them. Something about having kids kicks in the eyes-in-the-back-of-the-head mechanism. Maybe it's the hormones.
It's intimidating. To have such an incredible role model. I feel like, if I ever have kids, I won't be able to match up to the standard she's set. She's perfect.
I mean, yeah, growing up she made me mad plenty of times. But in hindsight, every time she told me NO, every time she said
You need to think twice about what you're wearing, who you're hanging out with, the media you're choosing....she did it all in love. She wanted me to be the best that I could be, and she was - and is - going to do everything she can to make sure that I have the opportunity to be that.
It's nice to have that. Someone always in your corner. Between God and my Mom, I'm set. I can do anything with them on my side. so, yeah - Happy Mother's Day to the best mom in the whole world. You are incredible. You have such patience (with me and everyone else), such depth that is hard to find in people now days. You are an awesome walking buddy, and you listen when I talk, even when I'm just spouting nonsense. You hold me when I cry over spilled milk, or the irrelevant equivalent of that. You are a Mom. and that's the coolest thing ever.
I love you.
