Mother's Day

So I ran my first 5K and it was incredible but before I get to that I need to backtrack and write about Mother's Day because it's overdue, past-date, and necessary.

My mom is due for her time in the sun here in my little blogosphere, she's lived for a long time in the shadow of my father's death. I admit this is unfair and I feel guilty for not writing this out appropriately and timely, on Mother's Day.

We have lived a bit of a tumultuous relationship, the push and pull of mother/daughter has always been a part of us and my father was the anchor that found the middle-ground (see, I snuck him in here already!). He would tell me, "be nice to your mother" and in turn to her would say, "Hey Mar, let her be" when the two of us would hit a rough patch. Without him it's been a little unsettling in many ways. I still hear him whispering in my ear. In the end though, she is my mom. My mother. She knows immediately when something is wrong, she knows my voice, my tone. She loves my kids as if they actually are her own and they love her back.

I want nothing more than for her to be happy in life. To find her way, her self, her normal. I thank God nearly every day for the total unconditional love that I was raised with. It is in a way an out of body experience when I hear myself talking to my kids as she talked to me, her sayings and mannerisms. I am her in many ways.

The future that I pictured for myself (marriage, kids, full sets of grandparents to visit and love on, the ideal situation) has been likened to an unfinished painting that has been restretched and repainted. The future will never be the past, but the reality is that time is ticking and there isn't enough of it to waste.

I will pick my mom up tomorrow morning at 6:15 and take her with me to strength training class. I won't be all that awake to conversate and such but she knows that and nothing is expected. Thank you mom for loving me through thick and thin, from Pennsylvania to New York and back, through weddings and funerals and the birth of babies. You are loved, you are cherished and your Sponge Bob Squarepants eating grandson thinks you hung the moon.