A Letter to my Mom

Today is one of those days where it is overcast, cold, and just windy enough to make the wind chime on the patio swirl around. It reminds me of the days you would wake me up with Nag Champa, and Annie Lenox/Sarah McLachlan/Alanis Morissette echoing through the house. I remember walking out and the entire living room would be taken apart, and all the furniture would be in mid-rearrangement. These were the days we spent cleaning, singing, dancing around, and debating the finer points of moving the couch to a new wall for the 4^th time that month. Days like that make up some of my sweetest moments from childhood, especially the days where the couch stayed half-moved for a week or so.

Today also happens to be Mother’s Day, and, like last year, we are about 200 miles apart. Soon that number will be about 1,563 (but really whose counting?) Perhaps the thing I’m looking to forward most in Utah is when you come to visit and we can spend 8 hours in IKEA, and about 4 hours driving through the mountains, windows down, listening to CCR/America/Fleetwood Mac, and not thinking even a little bit about the gas mileage, sorry Dad.

The last 23 years I have not had a single person in my life more dependable than you, more supportive than you, more loving than you. I have called you at literally every hour of the day for reasons ranging from a cute outfit, to a tough test, to a “should my cat really be making this noise right now?” Your ability to always come up with a plan of attack never ceases to amaze me, and 99% of the time they are great plans. The other 1%? That is when you call me the next day having looked at the caller ID and you don’t recall our 10 minute talk at 4 AM. Those are usually fantastic conversations too.

Those things aside, the most important thing you have taught me is how to embrace life in so many ways. How to try the sushi, buy the shoes, walk the log, take the job, and give the boy a chance (I’m sure Matt is grateful). You are one of the only people I know who truly lives. You have a spiritual wealth, a joy that radiates to others, and a passion for the everyday-the things I strive to bring to the world too. Where I would find monotony as a teen you would find an opportunity. You also may be the only human who doesn’t worry. Like they always discuss a “mother’s worry.” I think your Iron Woman because you’re cool as a cucumber, constantly.

You have also told me many times before in moments where I typically said something really weird, “How did I wind up with an amazing child like you?” The real question is how did I end up with exactly the mother I needed to learn about life, and all the beauty it contains? How did I get the mom who just gets me, in all of my oddities? How did I get to be the luckiest girl in the world, truly? Thank goodness Chafonda stepped aside because I don’t know how easy it would be for me to share you.

I can’t really keep writing because at this point I can guarantee the both of us are crying (I get that from you, you know.) I’m also hungry, which you can understand only too well (I’m hungryyyy). I am so grateful for you mom, for every talk we have ever had, every argument I have ever lost, every chore I was forced to do, every fear I was encouraged to face. You are the type of woman I can only hope to be like someday, and I love you more Meemaw.

"I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life." -Abraham Lincoln

Happy Mother's Day Sheila

XOXO