To My Mother

Forgive me for being so personal, but I've decided to dedicate this week's post to my mother.

Most of my earliest memories revolve around the woman I call mom. From sneaking chocolate chips with my older sister in our farm house in Raymond, ID and getting caught, to riding my bike up to the corner service station in Cokeville to chat with my mom while she helped my Grandpa with his books, sharing a snickers bar and soda pop, to learning how to sew in our basement, carefully unpicking imperfect seams, my mother was at the center of my life.

Despite lots of moaning and groaning, my mother was determined in our family scripture study each morning, gathering us in the living room to take turns reading from the Book of Mormon before she sent us on our way to school. She always hugged and kissed us and professed her love to us before we left, and I remember being grateful I knew my mom loved me.

When I entered jr. high, I was privileged to play volleyball with my mother as the coach. She was spirited, dedicated, and highly successful. Everyone loved her signature cheer leading jump after great plays, and it never got past me that she rooted for every underdog and made each one feel valuable. We were undefeated my whole jr. high career, but even better than that was playing for the best jr. high coach around and my biggest fan, too--my mother.

High school and college came and went, my parents supporting every athletic event and extra-curricular activity possible, sometimes traveling hundreds of miles to be there. They supported me through a mission and the transition that came afterwards. And when I became a mother myself, my mother was right outside the curtain, waiting to help me begin this incredible, daunting journey.

When life has been hard and I've needed careful advice or sometimes even just a slight change in perspective, my mother has said just the right thing to help me get back on my feet again. She taught me how to work, to read, to pray, to love--the most important things I do each day as a mother to my own four children.

As I have grown older, I have learned an important truth--that you never outgrow your need for a mother. A mother's work is never done, even when her children are grown and gone, and she is never tossed aside like clothes and shoes that we've outgrown or that have gone out of style. Moms never go out of style.

I've also noticed mothers never outgrow challenges either. My mom still has her share of hurdles to cross, one being the challenge of hearing loss, but still she manages to be a mother, a grandmother, a fantastic children's librarian, a wife and a friend. She's overworked and under appreciated, as most mothers are, but she still keeps plugging along because, well, that's what mothers do.

So today I just want to say "thanks" to a remarkably talented woman who has influenced my life in more ways than she could know. And I hope that somehow she knows how much I love and appreciate her, but chances are, she'll go to bed tonight like she does most nights, wondering if she's making a difference at all, thinking back to all the ways she wants to be better, rather than all the ways she's already great, because mothers have a tendency to do that.

So, just for today, I want her to know she's fabulous and I'm so glad she's my mother.