I remember hours spent making my mother laugh. My brother Dane and I were such dorks that we could make my mother laugh so hard she cried. We did the silliest things over and over and over with a more dramatic flair each time and oh she would laugh. We did it because she thought it was funny but mainly because we loved to hear her laugh. I don't have to work so hard to make her laugh anymore. My charming wit does that now.
I remember dancing around the dining room table as we cleaned the house to music and family scriptures at dawn.; Mom used to make oatmeal every morning before school--no one makes oatmeal like my mom. I remember those days when I was too overwhelmed and didn't want to go to school and my mom would keep me home and I remember countless hours stressing or venting or weeping to my mother. Then there are the days that I don't remember. Days and nights worrying about me, fretting over me, taking me to the hospital when I was a baby, kissing my little face, singing to me, rocking me. millions of seconds, hundreds of thousands of minutes spent teaching me to coo, to laugh, to walk. Teaching me to love. She was my friend and my Mom no matter how mean or selfish I was some times, she always loved me and sometimes she goes unheralded our mother but I love my Mom. I hope she feels like it was worth it. She is the most amazing woman in my life. I owe all that I am to my Angel Mother (as Abraham Lincoln says. I know, the quote is everywhere today but it doesn't change the way I feel about it). I love you, Mom! :D You're the Best!
I feel a very special gratitude toward the Mother that raised my sweet husband. I am so grateful to be married to a man of such quality, we joke but seriously, I am the one who married up. Jake is too good to me, he is selfless and loving and kind. He makes everything right in my world no matter how wrong it feels like it might be going that day. He is my perfect other half and God knew that if he gave him to you that he would turn out that way. I thank you for that. If not for a righteous Mother who raised him to have a testimony of the Gospel who valued selflessness, charity and love I don't know who I would be married to today and I am overwhelmed with gratitude because...I love your son! :D And I love you. I lived a year in Alabama and I felt like I had never left home. I too have learned from your example and I am a better person for being around you. I am glad to have such a wonderful Mother-in law and such a wonderful Grandmother for my children.
Then there are all of the mothers who are not mine or whom have never had their own children but are still mothers. There are so many names I could put here that helped shape who I am today, women who will forever have my gratitude and love. Sisters, friends, relatives, leaders, teachers... Sometimes I needed a loving touch from a different perspective, sometimes I needed someone to prompt me in the right direction at pivotal moments in my life. Thank you.
I pray that I can be the kind of Mother that I appreciate in all of you. I hope that I can have the love, patience and understanding that all of you amazing women and mothers have shown me. Happy Mother's Day.
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