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My mom tells us she loves us, but shows us in a million others ways:
She shows us she loves us by cooking us dinner every night- and the woman can cook. You haven't lived until you've had bacon wrapped chicken with chile/brown sugar glaze or her parmesan pork chops. I hate cooking. I can bake when I feel like it, but I don't see how I can possibly become one of those people who cook every. single. night. Even on nights we get take-out or something to go I feel like she cooks something that goes with it.
She shows us she loves us by answering panicked texts or phone calls in the middle of the night. TRUST me, there have been hundreds of them. When I'm having a panic attack in the middle of the night she'll shuffle right in, lay down beside me, and rub my head or talk to me until I fall back to sleep. For a season in high school it was multiple times a week. I don't know if the woman has slept through the night in 20 years. I also have a tendency to get hopelessly lost in the city I've lived in for my entire life. I get flustered and freaked out and often times she has to tell me gently that I went East instead of West (or vice versa.) My brother was on a painkiller for his side once and imagined there were spiders crawling on him in the middle of the night. Guess who came in at 2am and killed all the imaginary spiders? My mom.
She shows us she loves us by spending hours upon hours waiting. She waits in the long lines at wal-mart and Kroger to buy us the essentials for the week. She waits for us to answer our phones/texts to make sure we got to where we were going. She spent years waiting in doctor's offices to go with us to be seen about the latest hit on the head or viral infection they couldn't do anything about. She waited patiently and watched with pain as we made our own mistakes, and she waited for us to admit that we needed her help on more than one occasion. She waited in before and after school traffic. She waited for cakes to cool and for icing to set as she slaved over the coolest birthday cakes every year. She waited for us to change our mind six times about what we wanted to be for Halloween before she finally bought or made the costume. She waited for us to clean our rooms....she's still waiting on that one.
She shows us she loves us by spending money on both things we need and things we want. Just today (the day before mother;s day mind you) the woman bought me two bathing suits, a hat, a new shirt, and a pair of shorts. Just because. She'll take me to lunch when I'm having a bad day. She buys me coffee or breakfast in the mornings when she knows I had a bad night the night before. She buys me things for my future classroom. She buys me things for my current classroom at the church. She buys me goofy little happys from the Dollar Tree and Target clearance section all the time. Seriously, I can't tell you how many light up twirly toys, princess crowns, novelty pens, and colorful pencils I have in a box in my room. And no, I won't be getting rid of them anytime soon.
She shows us she loves us by telling us no. No, you can't go to "xyz" because of "abc." No, you can't get your hair dyed blue Melissa. No, you can't wear shorts that barely cover your rear end....I can't tell you how many times I hear the word "No." BUT I can tell you how many times I've been seriously hurt over something stupid I did. And nine times out of ten it's because I didn't ask my mom or did it even though she told me not to. The woman knows what she's talking about usually.
She shows me she loves me by listening. She has heard me yell, cuss, scream, cry, rant, cuss, wail, cry, yell, scream, and rant some more on practically a weekly basis. She has listened to meltdown after meltdown. She has listened to me tell stories for thirty minutes that could've been summed up in three sentences and end with "Well you had to be there." She has listened to every Jesse McCartney song I had on repeat in the fourth grade. She has listened to me talk obnoxiously on the phone in the next room for hours. She listened to me practice dance recital routines as a kid, practice speeches and presentations, practice solos and choir songs....over and over and over again.
She dropped everything she was doing more than once to come when I was yelling her name from the other room to tell her I was ____ (hungry, bored, missing the remote.) She laughed with me when I had a corny joke to say or when she said something funny by mistake. She cried with me when we went to say goodbye to Piper. She stayed up with me to the wee hours of the night finishing science projects and looking over papers that were due the next morning. She loved me- even in the moments where I told her I didn't love her because I was angry or afraid.
Not only does my mother say she loves me, she shows me through the million and one things she does every single day for our family. So, Happy Mothers Day to the most selfless, caring, and all around greatest person I know. I love you too, and wish I could write enough words to tell you how much I appreciate everything you do for me.
