There was only one person I wanted to spend my birthday with today…my mother.
It was a great day.
I spent time with my grandson and the playground, had a terrific ham and sweet potato dinner with my family, and received an amazing Maple Walnut Cake (my favorite cake) from my mother.
I gave my mother a bouquet of flowers…to thank her for my life and to honor her for the pain that she had to endure birthing me. My mother probably deserves to receive flowers everyday just for raising me and living to talk about it.
Mom’s description of me as a young child is, “Strong-willed”. I think she’s just trying to be nice. The truth is, as my grandmother would say, I was “an angel with the horns of the devil.” An utterly impossible child, albeit kind of cute, which is why I think I was able to get away with so much.
My mother is Italian, so intense emotions were never in short supply. There’s no doubt that I inherited some of that Mediterranean vim and vigor which is evidenced by my passionate responses to correction. I am my mother’s daughter which is I guess something for my mother to be proud of but it couldn’t have been easy raising me.
I owe my mother so many apologies and maybe an Act of Contrition or two for my past wild ways but I don’t think I would ever be able to catch up.
As an adult I have changed and so has my relationship with my mother. I see her is a much different light now, perhaps because I have four grown children of my own and have had to face some the more painful aspects of being a mom too.
Today I don’t have a birthday wish, I just want to say thank-you to my mother.
Mom, you are the strongest woman I know. You’re not only beautiful on the outside, you are also stunning on the inside. You possess all of the qualities that I admire…faith, loyality, and integrity. You love deep and give all to those you love. It would be honor to one day hear someone say to me, “Patty, you are just like your mother.”
Thanks Mom…for choosing life, for giving up the Emmy’s to endure labor, for working two and three jobs to support me and Bill and for loving me so much. I love you too!
Brown Study and Wool-Gathering 