Dear Mom,

This is a pose I've come to appreciate more fully.

Thank you for wearing yourself out to raise me.

Thanks for not blowing your top when I told you (screamed at the top of my lungs) that I hated practicing the piano.
Thanks for not telling my secrets to everyone.
Thanks for cheering the loudest for me at all of my events.
Thanks for keeping a journal about my successes and failures, and telling me how much you love me.
Thanks for teaching me to wash and iron clothes, budget and cook meals before I left home.
Thank you for making sure I knew that while we were eating liver and gluten, we were being well-nourished on less than $20 a week most weeks.  And thanks for being so resourceful... even though I didn't feel as glamorous as you wanted me to in a dress made from curtains; it's one of my favorite childhood memories--right next to having homemade underwear and carrying a green plastic peanut lunch box with homemade-bread-sandwiches-in-wax-paper to school when other kids had brown paper bags and real ziplock sandwich bags.

Thanks for telling me OFTEN how much the gospel means to you.
Thank you for being a worker instead of a dictator.
Thanks for insisting that we help weed the garden, change diapers on younger siblings and contribute to household chores.
You were better at it than I am, but I know how important it is NOT to give in to TIRED, and keep teaching by example... to stay in the trenches of motherhood, because motherhood doesn't end when kids leave home.
Thanks for stressing the importance of honesty and integrity.
Thank you for serving the less fortunate and having the downtrodden and homeless into our home.  It wasn't always comfortable or fun, but it gave me new eyes with which to view the world.
Thank you for telling me how lucky I was to have you around while I was in college, getting married and having children.  You had to do all of that without a mother and I can't imagine the void.
Thanks for being my mom.
You're the best and I love you with all my heart.
xoxo
Jenny