Lists of 30: Mother's Day Edition

 

30 memories tucked down deep and cherished.  About my Mom.  One for each of my years.

1~ For carrying me for nine months and birthing me in minutes. 

2~ After years and years, you showed me once a sketchbook with yellowed pages and a pretty pencil drawing of a girl and it was so very, very beautiful.  And you said you had drawn it "back before children...when I still had time to do things like that" and you shrugged your shoulders and laughed.  And I thought you were amazing and thatI had never realized you were an actual, bonafide ARTIST.

3~ For the endless games of UNO you endured for my sake...and so cheerfully, too.  Thank you.

4~ Letting me draw smiley faces on your toes and you having toe puppets for the rest of the night.

5~ Singing around the piano, you and your harmonizing alto and Elizabeth and I in our squeaky sopranos.  Everything in the world was beautiful when we sat at the piano and sang.

6~ For loving Dad and being committed to him. 

7~ Never having new gizmos and gadgets and clothes, but teaching us how to find happiness in simple things.  This has helped me so so so much in life.  Thank you.

8~ Eating tuna on saltine crackers for a night time snack.

9~ Listening to you talk Dutch on the phone with Oma and Opa and thinking that you could talk faster than anyone I know.  It made me happy to hear you-even when I didn't understand what you were saying. 

10~ For the hugs and kisses you kept giving me, even when I was a teenager.  I needed them.  Thank you.

11~Passing on your love of yard saling to me and the joy of the "How cheap can I get it?" game.

12~ You getting me a cashbox for my birthday when I was just a small girl even though you didn't understand why a girl would ever want a grey, boring old cashbox.  And then you gussied it up with sparkly stickers of swans and flowers and teddybears.  I have that cashbox still, though stickers aren't quite so glamourous and sparkly these days.

13~  For all the laundry you did for me.  I now understand.  Thank you.

14~  You would ask what I wanted to be when I grew up and I said "A mother with dozens of children" and you would laugh but a glimmer of happiness shone in your eyes.  And you would say " There is nothing better."  And I would think so too.

15~  For dinners around the table every night.  Thank you.

16~ The time you made Ramen from Aldi and it had bugs in it that you boiled and you screeched and gagged and laughed and got up and made another supper and you made us all (somehow) force down a meal after so unpleasant a surprise.

17~  For dressing up like a clown that one Halloween.

18~ For working it out that you could go with me on the school trip to the zoo.  It meant a lot.  Even then.

19~ For reading to me in such an animated voice I couldn't HELP but love books.

20~ Having flowers and plants scattered around the house; on the kitchen table and in the dining room and hanging from the ceiling by windows and vases on coffee tables by couches and little glass jars with cuttings in water and plants everywhere outside on the porch.  It is your fault I love flowers so much.

21~  For all the times you have shocked the pants off people around you-and made everyone laugh to pieces. 

22~ For all the sacrifices you made to be a Mother.

23~ For never letting me look at fashion magazines and saying my insides were more important than my outsides.  Thank you.

24~ For the money you slipped into the mail for me when I really needed some but would never ask.

25~  For giving me a taste for Dropjes from an early age.

26~ Sitting on the side of the bed with you one summer day and smelling your shoulder and drinking it in because it smelled like...YOU.  And you laughed and thought you stunk with sweat but I thought there was no better smell in the world.  And sometimes, at random times, I still smell it and I am a girl again.

27~  That you love Matt and that, in the beginning,  you knew I loved Matt.

28~ You never forget a birthday.  Ever.

29~ The Christmas you got me a sewing basket.  With real, grown up sewing scissors and equipment and I found like I had finally ARRIVED.

30~ For shaping me, intentionally and unintentionally, into the woman I am today through your relentless and sacrificial love.

Thank you.