Before I knew anything else, I knew how it felt to be loved

My mother used to say she never wanted to be a burden to her children, and yet the burden of her dying quasi young continues to weigh on me. She would have been 74 years old in 2009 had she made it to her birthday, but she died at the end of November instead of making it to December 28th.

She was the oldest daughter to her mother – a woman and grandmother who I celebrate every day of my life when I garden, when I cook for loved ones, when I think about comfort and love.

And now I’m a mother. Both of these women told me that their children were the happiness in their lives.

My mother on her dying bed told me, “I thank God for you every day.”

No one prepares you for what it is like to parent a child – no one can – they will tell you it is the hardest and most gratifying role you will play, but they don’t (as a friend so poignantly told me the other day) prepare you for the love you feel. Even how you love others who love your child. It’s this endless pool of love.

My mother was a daughter first, then a stepmother, then a mother – all of these parts she fulfilled with love as her guiding principle.

My mother was flawed. Liquor and nicotine where her vices. She was also beautiful – unequivocally so. Her soul was ethereal and her free-spiritedness is still my guiding force.

She was, most of all, my mother.

Before I knew anything else, I knew how it felt to be loved.

For that I am on my knees in gratitude, Mom.

Happy Mother’s Day.