My mother has taught me many lessons.

Lessons like riding my bike, how to cook, how to count and multiply x by b to get c, and how to choose the perfect outfit.

She’s taught me other important lessons, too.

Never say “Can’t” or “Try”, because I can, and if I want to do something, I will do it, I will not try.

Crying is okay, and a bad day is just a learning day, not a bad life.

My mother taught me to flip life over to look at the bright side, and I’m more grateful for that now more than ever.

But she taught me something else, too, something I could never have learned unless I went through it myself, and here we are. My mother has been my mother, she’s been my father, she’s been my counselor, my best friend, and my safe place. I appreciate her more every year of my life.

This is a letter for her.

Dear Mom,

I have never been more appreciative nor have I been more in awe of you than I am today. Growing up, I never realized or processed that you were anything more than my mother.

I never realized that you are also a beautiful woman who has goals and dreams of her own. A woman who is passionate and loving, giving and understanding, and so completely patient with and accepting of others.

You are a daughter, too.  A daughter who takes such wonderful care of her mother and truly appreciates the life that she’s given you. You make sacrifices and have no regrets.

You are a sister with siblings who love and care for you in a way only siblings can. You are the baby in your family, just like me, and are cared for by your brothers unlike anything I’ve witnessed. You three are inseparable, even by thousands of miles.

You wear so many hats, mom, or in your case, shoes. You are a hard worker, an intelligent and diligent student of life and of books, a master of gardening and home.

I took you for granted. You gave me so much, and I never realized, until now, how much.

I’m a single mom now, a role I never wished to play, and I’m finally understanding how damn hard you worked.

I finally get it.

This job is not for sissies.

It’s not for the weak willed nor the quitter.

Thank you, mom.

Thank you for passing up opportunities because you had to take me to soccer practice, instead of my dad.

Thank you for being lonely sometimes and for holding back those tears so I wouldn’t know you were upset, for making me believe that you are a super hero.

Thank you for sharing your late night nachos with me, when you could have shooed me back to bed.

Thank you for listening to real music instead of making me listen to kids’ songs all the way to day care. Wild, Wild West will always be one of our songs, and Pink Floyd our band.

Thank you for going to school and showing me that it can be done with toddlers while working full time.

Thank you for never taking your anger and frustration out on me as a child, especially when I was being selfish and unreasonable.

Thank you for sacrificing your social life so that I could have one.

Thank you for being my single mother.

The BEST mother.

I am strong and capable because you taught me strength and perseverance.

I have wisdom and faith because you have shown me the power of positive thinking and knowledge.

I am beautiful, inside and out, because you raised me to be a soul rather than a model.

I am so indebted to you.

I hope that I can be as fantastic of a single mother to my girls as you were and are to me.

I love you so very much, Mom.

Happy Mother’s Day! 

Your Very Proud Daughter,

Kallay

Linking up with Mama Kat’s Losin’ It and Writer’s Workshop.