Nov 26 2008
Thanksgivings eve
Well here we are, about to celebrate Thanksgiving 2008. Oh the misery of overfull stomachs! My younger brother was convinced he could shower to relieve the extension of the stomach when he over ate as an early teen. He would disappear into the bathroom after gorging himself miserable at the holiday spread mom laid out. I doubt it worked as he never made it to the leftovers any sooner than the rest of us.
Mom would spend days cooking, making sure we had a feast of epic proportions and wound up too tired to eat most of the time. It was always appreciated even when we were too young and dumb to realize how hard she had worked on it.
My mother did her best to create a magical childhood for her children no matter how horrid her own life was at the time. She ignored many of her own wants and needs, tending to our own instead, Mom should have earned saint hood status by now for selflessness in mothering if nothing else.
Life was not all roses for my mother, yet it could have been without her entourage, she could have been anything she wanted, her intelligence and spirit would have earned her any degree she could have sought. She could have married any man she chose, her beauty never a question, but a statement for all to see.
Mom put off her own life, casting it aside like an after thought, giving it freely to her children instead. In a perfect world we would have noticed then, yet it took me quite a while to realize just what she lost in doing so, having children of my own helped see to that.
Thanks Mom, I know what you did for me and what it cost you even though you would argue the point that it was worth it. Raising four children alone, working two and three jobs to do so, wearing shoes with holes in them, retaining your dignity and your sanity could not have been easy for you. Thank you, you are one of the precious things in my life that I am thankful for!
