Dear Momme: A Letter From the Editor to Her Mother

Dear Momme,

Yeah, I know Mother’s Day is really just a Hallmark holiday, a time for florists and candy makers to boost revenue by selling things to dads, sons and daughters who hope to show their love to the moms in their lives.

I’m bypassing Hallmark and going straight to the web to tell you publicly how thankful I am that you are the woman that you are, and that I am lucky to have you as my mom.

Thank you for letting me swim in the lake until the skin on my fingers and toes puckered, and I shivered when I got out of the water.

Thank you for wrapping that warm towel around me when I got out of the water and holding me tight while I warmed up.

Thank you for letting me skate on that same lake when it froze in the winter where I learned to do crossovers—those crossovers help me now when I play ice hockey.

Thank you for hiding my birthday gift so I could hunt for it—I love games and the experience helps me now when I’m looking for my misplaced keys.

Thank you for not letting my brothers sit on me all the time.

Thank you for giving me your gift of the giggles, it helps me enjoy the silliness of life and ignore the rest.

Thank you for letting me dress up as a witch for Halloween, year after year after year.

Thank you for putting us kids first—I know you made sacrifices for us, especially me—so that we had a sense of home stability.

Thank you for giving me four, bratty big brothers without whom I may not have developed skin thick enough to do this job.

Thank you for being my very best friend.

Thank you for all those really cool elaborately decorated birthday cakes, even if kids thought I got those every week.

Thank you for making for Scotty Reid that birthday cake with the 3D clowns tumbling off of it—we both still marvel at your creativity and skill today.

Thank you for putting up with my teenage attitude and angst.

Thank you for saying “no” when I asked if I could go out with that guy I met at Gravlin’s—what was that 25-year-old man doing asking out a 14-year-old girl like me?

Thank you for exposing me to comic geniuses such as Johnny Carson, Carol Burnett and Bob Newhart, who without the use of foul language can make you laugh to tears.

Thank you for visiting me in the various states I adopted as home.

Thank you for trusting me to start dinner for the family when I was just 12, it taught me resourcefulness and responsibility.

Thank you for teaching me that no matter what I’m no better than the next person, it gives me humility and respect for others.

Thank you for being you, the very best mom there could be for me.

Happy Mothers Day Momme! I love you!