I know. Errybody loves their Mama (and you should), but I talk about mine so often and so heart-fully because she really is amazing. She made the skirt I'm wearing in the pictures above and takes the best care of me every single day. (She is NOT amazing at taking pictures though, but such a shortcoming only makes her more lovable when you look through all the blurred, headless photos it took for her to get this one shot of me mid-sentence and -step reaching to explain the this-thing-is-not-working craziness of modern technology.)
She turned 65 yesterday. We were gonna do the "Yay, praise be for Medicare!" dance but we did that ages ago. She lost her grandmother at 57 to cancer and her father at 57 to a heart attack. In the months leading up to her 57th birthday she eyed the calendar warily, almost as if she knew the wave of woe was coming ... and it did. July, August and September of her 57th year tried the mess out of all of us. A mini-stroke, a not-so-mini stroke, kidney cancer (and the subsequent removal of one) and breast cancer rocked our universe, but it also blessed us (me, especially ... immensely).
This lady's a trooper. Two days after the stroke that weakened her right side and stole most of her words, she swung her legs out of the bed, stood up, got dressed and put the smoothest and tightest set of hospital corners on her bed. She just got to it. Through everything that threatened to flood her life in those following weeks, she just kept going forward ... up ... beyond. While I was still stuck on the whys of everything, she just shrugged her shoulders and straightened something. If you ask her today how she got through it all, she just says she was just doing what anybody would do--living.
We live together. And while I pay almost all of the bills, speak up for her whenever any words get stuck and see to her general needs and care, I am not the caregiver. I'm the baby child; the (still) spoiled one.
Yesterday, like any other day, she got up before me, made me a smoothie and French pressed some coffee (our regular coffeemaker up and died) and delivered it to my room. I was still in the bed. If I could video my sister in right now she'd tell you about those times when I was a kid and our mama did the exact. same. thing.
Picture it.
Me half-asleep, lazy as molasses in winter (every. single. morning.) sensing her presence and the aroma of something tasty. Reaching over to slurp and nibble on strawberry toast, or in yesterday's case, delicious, piping hot coffee. Dozing off again. Hearing her footsteps and jumping out of bed before stumbling out the door 30-40 minutes later with freshly packed lunch bag in tow ...
Mothers nurture (dads, too, but this post ain't about my Daddy who is a whole series of posts unto himself, lol). It takes its shape in all forms at all levels, but we know those mothers who've made it into an art form. Taking care of me, anticipating my moods, cravings and needs, knowing the difference between what I like and what I love is something my Mama does so effortlessly that it stuns me every single day. I've never considered myself to be lucky in any other respect than to have been born this woman's child, and I am ever grateful that I have had so many days to thank her, and God willing, to have so many more to come.