Good Morning.

Mother’s Day is approaching. How will you spend your day? I miss my mother. We didn’t always get along. We were both head strong people with very different personalities. As I have gotten older, I now realize why she was the way she was. Life changed her. My mother didn’t have an easy life, and I must admit, I probably didn’t make her life any easier.

She loved her grandkids and she loved me. She developed Alzheimer’s in her later years. The last two years of her life in the nursing home she was funny, cute, and a witty old woman. I suspect she was the person she was before life hit and responsibilities changed her.

I wish I could tell her all I now understand and say “I’m sorry,I didn’t understand”. She was a strong woman and when I was younger I didn’t want to be like my mom, but now I recognize that I want that strength. I want the keep-going attitude. She taught me that. In the last two years of her life she didn’t always know who I was, but I know that she would never choose to forget me. I chose to enjoy the humor and try and guess who I would be in her mind each time I visited her.

When my mother died I was going through an upsetting time in my life. She knew nothing about this.  The last evening I visited, where she fell ill hours later, she said to me, not knowing I was going through a tough time, “God knew what he was doing. He has a plan and it will all work out.” My mother never talked about God. This was an unusual thing for her to say and I knew that she was going to leave our world and leave me. I was right, I got the call hours later. She went from the healthy woman I visited earlier in the evening to being ready to leave this earth will an illness.

I was an only child. My mother, in spite of our differences and our arguments, always had my back, and I always had hers. We spent every Christmas, every Easter and every Mother’s Day together. Some of those holidays it was only for a few hours but I never missed one holiday with my mom in her 93 years.

I miss her. I hear her whispers when I need courage. I wish I had showed her more respect and more love. On this Mother’s Day, spend time with your mother. Make your mother feel special so you don’t have any regrets. A mother is your biggest fan and your biggest supporter. She will be honest and tell you when you are making mistakes. You might not always like what she says, but she will always have your back, and that includes being honest about your behavior. A mother will risk your wrath to change your life or make it better. A mother is love and when your mother is gone, you will never know another love like that in your life, but your will pass that love along to your children. Happy Mother’s Day. Take time to make your mother feel cherished always.