For My Mom, On Her Birthday

Happy belated birthday to my beautiful mom. It just wouldn’t be right if I’d posted this on time. Here are tonight's Top Ten (ok, twelve) reasons I love her:

She gives love through food. And, my... does she love us very, very well.

She is a nervous passenger when riding shotgun with me, especially in the city, holding on to doors and closing her eyes as I weave in and out of traffic. Somehow this makes me feel like I’m a good driver.

Almost ten years ago, we spent a full week in New York City together and discovered shared passions for goat cheese tarts and Champagne (thank you, Balthazar), department store windows (sigh, Bergdorf) and brilliant performances on- and off-Broadway.

She gave me six brothers and sisters. I need say nothing more.

She still looks the same as she did when she was 35. And I look much like she did when she was 35. So, logic tells me that in 20 years I may look a lot like I do--and she does--now. Yes. I will take it.

As a young divorcee with two small children, she boldly and bravely (and blindly?) moved from the comforts of her college town hometown to a two-traffic light village of a thousand to marry a sweet young pig farmer/electrician. I don’t know what made her do it—his stunning blue eyes and curly blonde hair or if she just knew he would be a good father to Matthew and I? Regardless, she got it right.

She loves her friends with all of her being. She sacrificed time with them while raising us, but dammit if they aren’t raising hell now that we’re all grown.

She pushed me towards the right boys and pulled me away from the wrong ones. This usually had the opposite of the intended effect, until it really mattered.

She picks the best perfumes. Always has. Anything she wears becomes her signature fragrance. 

Her strength is incalculable. Peerless. Defiant and graceful. Even after losing both father and son to the worst fate imaginable, she marched on. Head held high. Heart broken, but open and able to give seemingly endless love to her family and her friends.

She’s a sucker for grand gestures, tearjerker movies, dramatic love songs and romance novels. This woman loves love, and there isn’t a thing wrong with that.

She really does know best.