Mother's Day

Today is Mother's Day.  I am not a Hallmark kind of girl and so I am not big on holidays that feel overdone.   Mother's Day has become one of them.   That said, my Mother's Day was wonderful.   I spent it with my dear girls and my husband.   They were so thoughtful of me in their big gift, a digital photo frame so I can keep all their pictures with me and in their small gifts, the homemade valentines and presents.   An evening capped off with dinner and a family movie made it all the more wonderful.

I am so thankful that I am a mother.   My girls make me a better person. They make me want to try harder, to be the person that they think I am.   I know in a few years I won't be first and foremost in their lives, so for right now I am going to enjoy every moment that I am their everything.   To feel Abby's arms around my neck and get Maddie's sweet kisses and cuddle up with Destiny on the couch, my heart could not be any fuller than it is.

I am thankful for my biological mother that gave me life and for the sacrifice that she made.   Giving a child up for adoption has to be one of the most selfless acts that there is and she did it just for me.   I know that she has agonized over the years about her decision but I hope that she knows just how right her decision was for me and for my family.  I pray that I am as selfless when it comes to my love for my girls.

I am thankful for my mom.   My mom who sacrificed so much and worked so hard to raise me as a single parent.   It wasn't always easy but anything that she ever did was out of a heart of love and concern for me.   My heritage from my mother is a steadfast belief in a God who cares about me as an individual and who I can go to with anything at any time, not religion but relationship.   This is what I want more than anything to impart to my girls. 

I am thankful for my stepmother.  For the love that she gave me dad and for the easy friendship that we have developed over the years.  It hasn't always been easy but we have gotten there.  I love that she loves her granddaughters.    I am thankful that she continues to keep my dad's memory alive for me and the girls.

I am thankful for Bud's mom.   She welcomed me from the very first visit to her home.  She wanted more than anything for her boy's to marry Southern girls and neither one did.   She told me one day that I was a Southern girl trapped in a Northern girl's body, the highest compliment that she could pay.  She, like my own mom, could drive me to distraction but never did I doubt her love for me and for her precious grandchildren.   I miss her more than words can say.   

I am thankful for Bud's stepmom.   She truly epitomizes a mother's love.   She came into her stepson's lives at a point when they really probably were not appreciative of their own mother, let alone a stepmother.   She could have let that define her relationship with them but she didn't.  She has been that quiet, supportive person in the background, always careful to not intrude.   It truly has been a pleasure to get to know her and I value her opinion and her friendship more than she will ever know.  I love that she loves my husband and my girls and would do anything for them. 

So much of who I am as a person is because of the women in my life that have influenced me.  To them I say, Happy Mother's Day.