Things she did for love
When I was three, she put M&Ms on my spaghetti.
When I was five, she let me wear a tutu to my birthday party. There was much back and forth on this, but I got my way.
When I was eight, she let me paper my bedroom walls with wallpaper samples. It was hideous. I loved it.
When I was eleven, she bought me training bras — helping me adjust them, showing me how to put them on. I would not really need them for several more years.
When I was thirteen, and having a very tough social time at school, she dropped my brother off first, then drove around with me for ten minutes, sometimes more, so I wouldn’t have to hang out on the playground at school for a moment longer than absolutely necessary.
When I was sixteen, she planned a surprise birthday party for me, then did not complain when I took everyone at the party except her to a different, cooler party, a mere two hours or so later.
When I was twenty, she drove three hours round-trip to pick me up at an (ex-) boyfriend’s house, bring me home, and listen to me cry…for two weeks.
When I was twenty-seven, she and my father walked me down the aisle. She did not cry.
When I was thirty, she encouraged me as I nursed my newborn. She had never nursed a newborn, but she cheered me on for as long as it took for me to make it work. (It took six weeks.)
That newborn is now ten years old. In all the most important ways, the way I mother her is the way my mother mothered me.
For my mother, for all mothers, here’s a tribute from MotherWoman.
