Happy Birthday Mom!

Top Ten "Off the Top of My Head” Things I Adore About My Mom…
1- Her laugh, it is so contagious and generous. I remember once I was up at college on the Fourth of July and I didn't realize what day it was until I walked right smack into a parade! I called my mom to tell her and she laughed her guts out and told the whole family. Only mom can give fun moments their true appreciation!
2- Mom is and was when I was a teenager, the very best person in the world to go shopping with. Some of my friends couldn’t stand going shopping with their Moms, but I didn’t know how to shop without my mom there. She would gush, like only my mom can, over how cute I looked in everything I tried on (even when it was obviously untrue.) I remember one day one of Shana’s friends stepped out of the dressing room next to us, and said “I came out to see the mother who talked so nice to her daughter!”
3- Her handwriting. I have tried, and failed, to imitate it my whole life. It’s perfect.
4- Her singing voice. Ditto what I said above about her handwriting.
5- Her life lessons. My mom has never really preached to me, when she has an insight she shares it with me like a friend. And whatever her insights have been about- whether it is gratitude, or prayer, or enjoying the small things in life, or letting go of anger when someone hurts you- they have always hit home.
6- Her phrases like: “Faaaaam-ly Meeting!” or “Everyone’s Momming me!” or “Swimm-ing swimm-ing, over the ocean blue” (sung to anyone in any body of water), or “Go my son” or “On your mark get set go” or “run run run like a puppy dog.”
7- Her endless packages in the mail for Eliza and William.
8- Her inexhaustible compassion. Everyone knows she is the person to go to when you need someone to listen. She cries telling me stories about people she doesn’t even know.
9- She is always up for a Dairy Queen Blizzard.
10- Looking back I can honestly never remember her being critical of me. As a grandmother she makes me feel like I am the best mom in the world, even as she subtly teaches me a hundred little tips of the trade. Like most moms, she is so much always there and such a part of me that I take her for granted. But, she is the pillars I stand on. I love you mom!