To my mom.

Mom,

They say to truly understand someone you have to walk a mile in their shoes, well this year I got to walk in yours, 
and it has been damn near impossible. I don't know how you did it. 

Mom, thank you for everything you did, just to get us to adulthood. 

    Thank you for spending 5 hours cleaning the dentist's office every single Saturday for years, just so we could have braces. 

    Thank you for working tirelessly all day long and still turning around and taking us to every single soccer practice, 
choir concert, dance recital, friend's house, birthday party, anything, we had. 

Thank you for sleeping in a bed behind the couch in the front room so we could all have our own rooms. 

    Thank you for always knowing our favorite candy, and leaving them on our bed for us to find. For me it was never
 about getting candy, but that you knew my favorite. You knew Megan liked cheeze-its and i liked cheese-nips. 

To this day “knowing my favorite” is on my checklist of how I want to be loved, and I know exactly where that idea came from. 

    Thank you for teaching me to be kind, to everything. Thank you for rescuing baby birds every single year, 
for showing me how to feed them with the medicine dropper, every hour around the clock until they are old
 enough to fly. For letting the baby possum stay with us until it could survive on its own. For rescuing every
 sickly animal that others turned away, teaching me to see the hurt over the germs, to extend empathy before 
judgment. For apologizing to your flowers when you forgot to water them… for teaching me that everyone, 
and everything, matters, and we give love to it all. 

    Mom I remember those seasons, when every appliance in the house would break at the same time, and 
the bills just Would. Not. Stop. Coming. I remember finding you crying on the laundry room floor, and laughing
 through the tears, when I reminded you that the toaster still works.

I remember you saving every single dime so you could take us school clothes shopping every year...
Mom thank you for the field trips, presents for birthday parties, Halloween costumes, yearbooks,
 everything… you always found a way.

Thank you for Christmas, seriously, I don't know how you did that, there was 5 of us, and you still found 
a way to give each and every one of us Christmas. Not only Christmas presents… but you made it magic, 
you gave us Santas footprints and reindeer hooves, you left out magic snow, and messy carrots…
 you kissed our noses with candy canes despite the insurmountable financial stress sitting in colorful boxes
 in front of the tree. 

Thank you for not only getting up every single day and fighting the impossible odds, but for giving us a 
childhood in the process. 

Thank you for accepting me exactly as I am. For loving me when I'm being stubborn, for letting me 
grow when learning, for helping me when I'm stuck. For teaching me to follow my heart no matter 
where it leads me. For telling me to follow the love. 

For not even blinking when I told you I love her. For rainbow eyelashes and mardi gras beads at 
pride fest, because I’m your daughter no matter what, and let's face it, you have a thing for 
Melissa Etheridge ;) 

Mom, thank you for everything, thank you for stepping into my storm. For hearing all of my 
thoughts, thank you for making me feel sane when I’m sure i have lost my mind. For
 validating my hurt, then telling me how much better it is all going to be.

For flying in just to take Malia to the pumpkin patch when I couldn't take off work because you 

get how important it is.  

 For keeping me going.

For the tough love when I need it, 

And for stepping in when you know I cannot carry it anymore. 

Mom, thank you for Christmas, I cannot even think about this sentence without tearing up. 
Thank you for enabling me to give to my babies what you gave to me.

Mom thank you. 

Thank you for everything. I couldn't be making it through my “year of the toaster” without you. 

Thank you, mom.

    I love you. 

        Thank you for being my mom.