Happy Birthday, Mom

Thank you for the very dear, precious mom you are, for the joy and common sense you brought to your parenting, for being so down-to-earth.  Thanks for driving around in a space helmet and saying "gosh!" when you turned your ankle and dropped your groceries.  Thank you for welcoming our friends and for always being available for us to tell you what was on our minds.  Thank you for tricking us into good manners by the long weeks of practice before taking us to a restaurant.  Thank you for those long years when you made all those sandwiches for us kids and Dad every morning and had to come up with other things to go in our lunches as well.  Thank you for the roast beef on Sundays -- then and now -- the finest kind of comfort food.

Thank you for seeing the best in each of your children and letting us all know that we were loved.  Thank you for carrying us in your heart for the past 60 years, and for the long hours of private prayer that have ascended for each of us.  Thank you for reading the Bible and memorizing it, and putting it into practice.  Thank you for loving your grandchildren and for your prayers for them as well.

Thank you for your relationship with Dad.  Thank you that as a little girl you began to think about what you wanted in a husband, and you knew you'd found it when you met Dad.  Thank you that we didn't have enough money but we didn't know it because you learned to trust God through those experiences.  Thank you for the way you and Dad were always on the same team, and it was usually the team we wanted to be on.  Thanks for the camping trips, for the years at Family Camp, the Why-Not Days, your face when you were watching your family doing something together.  Thank you for working like a lumberjack and for being willing to tackle any kind of home project.

Much of what we learn in life is by osmosis, absorbing it from the environment and example around us.  Your children and grandchildren and more people than you will ever know have been nurtured, instructed and inspired by you, my beautiful, remarkable mom.

Happy Birthday, Mama.  I love you.