Mommy

Perhaps one of the most hurtful things I ever told her was, "I love you, because you're my mother, but in life I would not have chosen you as a friend." But the testimony to how she really loves me, despite and in spite of that, and of my many other transgressions and shortcomings, is evidence of the fact that, next to my Jesus, she is the best friend I could ever have.

She worries, and worries inordinately and sometimes unnecessarily, about my well-being. While she tries to hold me back from potentially disastrous courses of action I may take, she has the graciousness to reluctantly let me go and live my own life, and find out for myself whether I shall fly or fall flat on my face. And, if so, she's always there with band-aids and Betadine.

She wants the best, and only the best, for the ones she calls her own. She's seen my heartaches and witnessed my heartbreaks, and has her own opinons as to the guys in my life - the jerks, the jokers, the knights in shining armor, and everyone else in between. But because she loves me, she will try to love the jerks because I happen to love them, while praying that the knight of her choice will someday bring me to my senses...sometimes, you have to wonder if indeed Mother knows best.

She takes care of me, when no one else seems inclined to do so, especially since I sometimes make it my business to take care of everyone else. She takes me to dinners that I do not have the strength or talent to cook; buys me things that I no longer have the spending capacity to acquire; allows me to go on flights of whimsy that may seem crazy to the world but, to some extent, have meaning in her eyes.

She has no idea what a blog is, and that I am writing about her. If somehow I ever leave this world ahead of time and neglect to keep her up to speed, I would appreciate if someone out there would tell her. She's the best, even if she does not think so or if we her children do not let her know, and I thank God for who and what she is and has been and will be in my life. My Mom. Whoever I let into my life as a partner had better learn to love her to pieces - perhaps even more than I do - and appreciate who she is, for God's greater glory. Amen.