Mother's Day

Dear Mom,

Happy Mother’s Day! I know that sounds cliché, but it’s a real hope: I hope you’re happier this Mother’s Day than last year. A year ago you were suffering and fighting AND getting ready to come to the seminary graduation of your incredible daughter! Now you’re resting in love and peace, I hope, with the ocean and the earth and all the saints.

This year on Mother’s Day I am sad not to be sending you a card (or, rather, an e-card), talking to you, hearing about the tomatoes and peppers you’ll plant this week. I’m sad that I’m not with Dad and Scott while they plant your tomatoes and peppers today! I’m sad that I don’t have you around anymore. I’m jealous of all my friends whose moms are alive, but they don’t appreciate what they have, some don’t plan to talk to their moms today, they don’t think highly of them or tell them how great they are. I hope I wasn’t like that, but I bet I was. I bet I never told you (or didn’t tell you enough) how wonderful you are, how thankful I am you’re my mom, how much I love you.

So…thanks. Thanks for being so supportive of whatever I wanted to do. Thanks for sacrificing your own career to be home with me and Scott. Thanks for feeding us first in the days when money was tight. Thanks for teaching me how to read, cook, drive, amuse myself, work hard, be a good person. Thanks for not letting me watch TV and encouraging me to read and do other things instead—and teaching me to never be bored. Thanks for teaching me about time management. Thanks for teaching me how to think for myself, to use my brain, to not be ashamed of being smart. Thanks for being there whenever I had a question…and for finding things out or telling me how to find out for myself. Thanks for asking me the right questions. Most of all, thank you for teaching me how to love people—no matter who or where they are or what they look like. You didn’t say it like this, but you taught me that every person is a beloved child of God. So thanks—that is important and you did a good job. You’re an incredible woman and a wonderful mother, and I love you so so so so so so much (as my students say!)

I may not have figured out everything about how to love, or how to let go when people I love move on, but you can rest easy, mom, knowing that you raised a daughter well and that she learned your lessons.

I love you a lot! Happy Mother’s Day.

love,
Teri