Hello Mom? It's Me... Your Daughter

Happy Mother's Day...

This is the part where I am supposed to wax poetic about love and flowers, about your love of flowers, about how much I love you, and flowers.
Now that I think about it, I probably should have sent you flowers.
That's what a good daughter would do, isn't it?
A good daughter would have ordered flowers weeks ago.
A good daughter would have mailed a card. But you didn't get a good daughter. You got me.
As much as I would like to, I can't give you a Hallmark moment. I suspect that if I did, you wouldn't buy it anyway. We know each other too well for that.
Here's what I can say. What I want to say.

Thank You.

Thank you for not sending me to boarding school (or reform school) even when you had plenty of good reasons to.

Thank you for the horse. Every twelve-year-old girl wants a horse. I was the twelve-year-old girl who got one.

Thank you for the "Nose Picking Song". It was possibly our best composition. You may not remember the lyrics, but I do.

Thank you for all of the Birthdays, Christmases, Valentine's Days and Arbor Days that you never forgot.

Thank you for not moving and leaving no forwarding address when I left home.

Thank you for the braces, and enduring the drama of dental visits.

Thank you for insisting that I attend kindergarten even though I swore I would never go.

Thank you for letting me smoke a corncob pipe in the 7th grade. Most mothers would not have indulged that particular phase.

Thank you for letting me drive your car and bring it home with no gas.

Thank you for all of the ballet, tap, baton, and tumbling lessons, when it was painfully obvious that I had no talent.

Thank you for everything that came before, and everything that came after all of it.
Thank you for being my mom, because no one else would have wanted that job.

And just for the record: If I had it to do all over again, I would have worn that dorky pink dress on the first day of school without you having to call my father to come home from work and make me. Even when he told me I didn't have to, I would have worn it for you. Because you are my mom.

Love,
T.

Image:http://www.americansabbatical.com/