Mom, Thanks

Mother’s Day, 2011

Mom,

Thanks for having a resolve tougher than a two dollar steak at a clearance sale when I wanted to test you and for not backing down when I tried you because you knew what was right for me.

Thanks for having shoulders softer than summer slumber by the seaside when life sometimes beat me into a pulp of worthless goo.

Thanks for making me tuck my shirt into my pants, for making me say “Sir” and “Ma’m”, for making me get my hair out of my eyes and for making me go get my own hickory switch when I needed it.

Thanks for worrying about me through the bumps and bruises, breaks and pains, stings and dings, bike wrecks and car wrecks, ups and downs, mountains and valleys.

Thanks for having a ready box of band-aids and a tiny bottle of merthiolate that burned like fire but seemed to heal like a miracle direct from the King James Bible when applied to those cuts and scratches.

Thanks for seasoning your words of constructive honesty with sensible sobriety the times you had to tell me what I needed to hear and not what I wanted to hear.

Thanks for having eyes in the back of your head because I imagine they kept me out of trouble on more than one occasion.

Thanks for understanding how a well-timed and well-placed moment of silence sometimes said more to me than an ‘I told you so’ ever would.

Thanks for praying for me when I was face-down in the pits of despair and then for praying for me when I sat perched on top of the world.

Thanks for your forgiveness then your forgetfulness when I spoke to you without thinking, when I judged you without reason or when I caused you to ever be hurt, ashamed or disappointed in me.

Thanks for taking me to the county fair and the Smoky Mountains and the school carnivals but also thanks for taking me to the funeral home so that I would know how brief and full of value life really is and how the people you meet along the way and who go to their reward before you deserve a bit more than just a passing thought.

Thanks for leaving that lamp on at the end of the couch when I came home late and for going on to bed but staying awake until you heard my key unlock the front door and then heard my footsteps in the living room.

Thanks for naming me what you did and not naming me after a constellation, a car part, an exotic food, a foreign country, a shoe insole, a pain reliever, a soap opera star or some off the wall combination of names from two relatives no one else in the family remembers.

Thanks for giving life to me but also thanks for giving life to my brother and sister because, well, they’ve become pretty special to me, too.

Thanks for trusting your faith and your common sense to instill your values in us kids and for not being lazy or unconcerned enough to leave that task to a TV show or a TV star.

Thanks for loving Dad and for the moment when you knew with all certainty you would ride out life’s storms with him together and not ever settle for just putting up with him or walking away from him when you felt you had had enough.

Thanks for making me take my cap off in the house, for making me brush my teeth in the morning, for making me wash my hands before supper, for making me say my prayers before going to sleep and, from time to time, for telling me to act like somebody with some sense.

Thanks for caring more about us than you ever cared about yourself.

Thanks for teaching me to share and play fair and take turns.

Thanks for making me visit your parents and Dad’s parents and all those aunts and uncles and cousins when I was younger especially after there came a time when I thought my Sunday afternoons could be better spent doing almost anything else because I now miss those times, those places and those precious people.

Thanks for recognizing my wife for the good woman she is and for always making her feel welcomed and loved.

Thanks for your kindness, your courage, your patience, your good humor, your sacrifices, your talents, your dreams and the countless other things that make up who you are.

Thanks for being my mom and not my friend because I needed you to be my mom more than I needed you to be my friend.

Happy Mother's Day.

Love,

Tim