"Thanks, Mom"

Today started out pretty rough. I woke up feeling very sad, mainly because I am still trying to cope with the loss of my mother this year. It was hard to see her birthday come and go when she wasn’t here to celebrate it anymore. It was hard to go through Thanksgiving without that phone call to my mom. And now Christmas is coming. I am trying VERY hard to stay chipper even though I am deeply saddened that I can’t call Mom on Christmas like I did last year. I can’t call her ever again! And it’s hard. She’s gone during Christmas, too.

So, yes, I woke up feeling pretty sad. I’ve been sad a lot lately. I have been told that there will be good days and there will be bad days. And after I broke down in tears in the bathroom, behind the locked door because I didn’t want Jesse to see me cry, I started to ask myself, is this going to be one of those bad days?

But it couldn’t be one of those bad days! Not today! I had WORK to do! I have book promotion stuff to do for certain authors! I had a cover reveal for a new book to announce! I had some reading to get done for a book I’m going to write up a blurb for! And I had some writing to do!

This could not be one of those bad days.

So I tried to just continue with what I had to do. Even as I got Jesse up for school and get him his breakfast, get him ready for school, I barely had the energy, the drive, to do anything. I just wanted to climb back into bed and be sad all day.

But I couldn’t do that.

Later, after I got Jesse to preschool, I got on the computer and did as much as I could get done. I read an email from a friend of mine. This friend knows about my loss and she has been an awesome amount of support and understanding. She has lost her mother, too, in the past, so she knows that pain. And in this email, she offered some very comforting words. Something along the lines of “it will get better” and “You start to remember and think about the good times and the pain only comes once in awhile.  I think it is God's way of helping us bear it.” And the fact that she was keeping me in her prayers helped A LOT, too.

But, still. I was sad. I just couldn’t function like always. I went to lie down on the couch, covered my head up and fell asleep. And when I was sleeping, I felt something on my back. It was like a light touch on the center of my back. And when I felt that, I was just really filled with so much love and comfort. When I woke up, I wasn’t sad anymore. I actually felt a lot better. I even smiled. I was HAPPY.

When I got back to work on the computer, I thought of my friend’s email. She was talking about how she’d helped her daughter with something, something that cost a bit of money, and she said her daughter did not say “thank you” when all was said and done. I could only shake my head and mutter, “Ah, parenthood. The most thankless job in the world.” I could relate. Many times I have helped my kids with something or another and didn’t get a “thank you” in return. (The same goes with dads.) Of course, I DO try to teach my children manners. To say “please,” “excuse me” and “thank you.” But sometimes they forget. And we moms, we can only mutter to ourselves “yeah, you’re welcome” because we do the things we do for our kids because we LOVE them. We’d do ANYTHING for them. Even if we don’t get a “thank you’ in return. And we’d do it again!

But I thought some more on that. I HAVE said “thank you” many times to my mom, for some thing or another. But then I realized, you know, there are some things that I HAVE NOT thanked my mother for.

And maybe I should thank her for them right now. Why not? I AM grateful to her for these things! And I know she’s not here to hear them or to read this, but I felt it was important to say.

Thank you, Mom, for being in this world and becoming the wonderful you that you were.

Thank you, Mom, for having me and being my mother. I could have had any other mother in the whole world, but God picked YOU to be my mother.

Thank you, Mom, for caring so much about me to teach me things. To teach me right from wrong, how to be smart, how to be strong.

Thank you, Mom, for always being there to talk to. For always being that shoulder to cry on and that ear to listen. And thank you for talking about things when I needed you to talk to about things.

Thank you, Mom, for always being someone I could talk to.

Thank you, Mom, for supporting me no matter what choices I made in life. It helped knowing that you were still on my side no matter what, and that you still loved me no matter what.

Thank you, Mom, for keeping all of us safe. For making sure we had a home, a bed, clothes to wear and that we got an education. Even when you were firm with us about going to school and eating our food, we knew you did this because you loved us.

Thank you, Mom, for making sure we had good times, fun times, more than the bad times.

Thank you, Mom, for always having good advice and telling me how to find my way whenever I became lost or afraid. Even across the miles, you were there for me when there was nobody else, and nobody else on my side.

Thank you, Mom, for your love, your attention, your guidance and wisdom and strength. You inspired me in more ways than you will ever know.

Thank you, Mom, for being in my memories. You may be physically gone from this world, but you are still in my heart, in my mind, in my dreams and in my thoughts for always.

I love you, Mom.