Mother’s Day – A day when we celebrate the special women in our lives. I did a little searching on the Internet and found that Mother’s Day was started in 1908 by Anna Jarvis as a celebration within families. It became a national holiday in the U.S. in 1914.
My sister Patty and I have been blessed to have a wonderful mother, one whom we can look up to (okay, maybe not literally as she is shorter than both of us) with great respect.
Everything she has done has been with others in mind – she has always thought of others before thinking of herself. I have seen her go through so much in the 54 years that I’ve been around. Yes, if you ask her, she will tell you about the time when I was a toddler and we were driving in downtown Baltimore and went past the hospital where I was born. She pointed it out and of course I then asked which floor I was born on. She said the 13th floor just because I guess it was the first number she thought of. Well, evidently I then responded, “I remember coming out and saying ‘Here I am on the 13th floor of Mercy Hospital.'” Yep, she did say that she had slight difficulty controlling the car through the tears of laughter at my comment. So I suppose that I remember things from way back at birth. LOL But, I digress.
I have so many fond memories of my years growing up. There were the early days of having little festivals at our house in Baltimore, and then piling all of us into the car to go to the pool in Lancaster, eating fish sticks with ketchup, and giving me home perms. And then there were all of the dresses she made for school pictures and confirmation and graduation. BTW, I did get many compliments on quite a few of those dresses! And, I’m sure that all I need to do is mention our home on South Marshall Street and it will bring up fond memories for a lot of people. And, oh the Family Parties – my oh my!!!
I will always remember her hard fought campaign when she ran for a public office and how she held it together through an unexpected defeat, waiting until we were away from the public eye to let the tears flow. That really sticks in my mind as a testament to her strength. She has always had a great interest in politics and was elected to City Council while in Lancaster. I remember how much passion she brought to that position.
More recently, mom and I have enjoyed our annual attendance at the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concerts. We’ve even traveled to Greensboro once and to Baltimore once so that we could see them. (Yes, mom, we will def be going again this year!) And truly, I’m not sure which one of us is the bigger fan of this band. Case in point, one year she asked me to go stand in line at the ladies room for her so that she could finish watching a song they were performing. Really mom? Okay maybe that time she was thinking of herself, but that’s okay. And, then there was a recent trip up to the Lake when we all played Cards Against Humanity. I think all of us who were there can all agree that we weren’t expecting some of the cards you played during that game, especially given the fact that we had 3 generations participating in the game. Lawdy that was quite enlightening! LOL
There is so much more that I haven’t shared because if I included everything, it would turn into a 500 page novel. I will just say that Mom, AKA Billie Jo, AKA Gran, AKA Aunt Billie is an amazing woman. From the early days as our parent, to becoming a mother-in-law to my awesome brother-in-law Ted, to now being Gran to my amazing nephews Clay and Danny and quite honestly to all of their friends as well (oh and we can’t forget that she is also Gran to Colby and Tana, and Great Gran to Charlie), mom has always been someone who we can count on to be there for us in whatever way she can. We are blessed that she is still here with us. Actually, she had made a promise to Danny when he was just young that she would live to 100 years and I know he will hold her to that. 🙂
So, to Mom, I wish you a very Happy Mother’s Day! Thank you for being my mom – and my friend!
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