Happy Mother's Day

Feliz dia de las madres to all the caring adults that nurture children and youth.

John Bowlby said that if you care about children, then love their parents.  Lord knows we need all the loving we can get :)

Every parental sacrifice and every joyful experience as a parent begins and ends with love. 

Today, I honor my daughter and the best letter I ever got:

Dear Mom,

Thank you for being such a supportive mom.  It's awesome that you're studying to get a PhD, and you can still spend time with me.  You helped me overcome my fears and you stand up for me.  You're the mom that got me to watch SNL (Saturday Night Live) when I was 2 years old, and helped me find my calling.  You make me who I am today.  Even though you sometimes lose control and start yelling and cursing like a sailor with a cornial (sic) papercut (a Tina Fey line, a gross exaggeration and poetic license, I assure you), you are still a pretty kick-butt mom.  You're smart, intelligent, creative, funny and weird (personal fav).  I would never ask for a better mom (I'm a keeper!  I get to stay!).  I am eternally grateful (I get to be her mom?).  Thank you for being my ("my" is underlined 5 times) mom.

Your loving daughter,
Paolina (age 11)

I have a letter to my own mother:

Dear Mom,

Thank you for being a beautiful, charming, flawed, side-splittingly funny, spiritual, wise and adventurous mother and force of nature.  Thank you for being manipulative, rageful and selfish too.  I am harder to scam because of it.  I am not scared of anger because of it.  And I have learned to think of myself first now, despite it.

I miss you even though I know that you are with me always.  Thank you for continuing to lecture me about making my bed and turning on the lights when I read (No!  My eyes are sensitive to light and it is more comfortable for me to read in the dim light.  Please believe me!).  Thank you for being proud of me - it will always matter to me.  Thank you for loving my daughter the way you did and continue to do.  Thank you for every story, every laugh, every meal, every caress, every, every, every, every...

I will cry dammit!  Paolina says I look like Rudolph when I do, but then my skin clears up and I look fresh ;)  Better out than in, I always say.

I am so glad I chose you, you chose me and God put us together, however convoluted that story was - I get it now.

Te adoro, Irene, bruja hermosa y mujer, alma de mi corazon.  Gracias a Dios.

Con mucho, mucho amor,

Tu hija, Alejandra (age 43)