Mom, on your 59th Birthday.

Dear Mom,

So all day today I thought about how it's your birthday tomorrow. Well actually, by the time I post this it will be tomorrow. Something I get from you... being a night owl. I've been thinking all day about you, and how I wanted to call and wish you a happy birthday right now, because I'm so excited about it, and I want you to know I've been thinking about it, and you for the past few days. But then, I wondered if that would take away from my day of birthday call, and so I thought I better wait until tomorrow.

But birthday calls can be sort of lame anyways, because some stuff you can't say out loud or it just sounds cheesy and ridiculous, like the words of a song. They only work when sung. If you speak them, their magic dies.

So I want to write you a few things that I wouldn't say in my birthday call, because bad cell phone reception and my voice might ruin them.

How do you celebrate the woman who gave you life? The one who endured hours of hard labor, screamed at the nurse and then brought you into this beautiful world. How do you tell her that everything she touches is magic? That her style spills over into everything she does, that no one makes cinnamon rolls like her. That the sound of her voice is more familiar that my own. That all her little quirks make her more lovable. That I see her face every morning when I look in the mirror, and I like that. How everyone who knows her, loves her. How she has been the saving grace of our family, of me.

No one understands me the way you do, Mom. Being with you, talking to you is so natural, like breathing. I have to remind myself to hang up with you when we are on the phone-- and my cell phone bill pretty much always reflects that. Whenever I have to leave you, or you me, it always feels too soon. I have to repress the urge to pull a Hannah and sit in front of the door refusing to let you exit the house. And I want to cry like my children as I watch you drive down the street and away from me and I feel that same familiar ache of homesickness in my chest. They love you too, you know, almost as much as I do.

But probably not as much. I don't know if anyone could love you as much as I do. And I love you more every year I am a mother, and I understand at a deeper level how hard it was to be the kind of mother that you were, and love us the way that you did. And Mom, that's saying alot. Because I've pretty much worshipped you my entire life, really.

Some people's souls just speak to each other, and yours speaks to mine. Thank you, Mom. For being alive, for being the rock that you are, the steady hand, the comforter, the example. For teaching me how to be a mother. And being there for me when the application isn't so easy. You are an elect lady. Happy Birthday.

Love,

Your Third Child