Mom

This is my mom. It's her birthday. She is 66 years old today! Today I want to say thank you in celebration of my mom. Her name is Freda. That's her running the raffle at the family reunion with her great neices, nephews, and Manny, of course. Everybody got a turn at the mike.

Thank you for quiet conversation, for a listening ear whenever I needed it or still need it.

Thank you for being silly, for playing hide and seek and tag with us (back when parents were less inclined to do this kind of stuff).

Thank you for making clothes for my Barbies.

Thank you for loving me more than anyone else in the world quite ever could (except that Dad, Pete, and Bobo love me like that, too, but mother's love is special).

Thank you for sticking by me no matter what. (My mom used to tell me that I could go to prison for the most heinous crime and she would always love me because nothing can undo a mother's love for her child. Pretty deep analogy, I get you, Mom.)

Thank you for coming from a huge farming family and allowing me to grow up cradled in the arms of rural life, where fun is created from what you have on hand and mischief is expected and accepted among your kid and her brother and wild and wooly cousins.

Thank you for understanding that I have my own path in life.

Thank you for being such a great baker, I owe my talents in this area to you.

Thank you for giving me the example of always getting up one more time than you fall.

Thank you for teaching me the essence of unconditional love.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Love,
Chris