For my mom

Dear Mom,

I know you can’t read this now, nor are you “watching down” on us. However, I’m going to address this to you since these are the things I wish I had known I needed to say 16 years ago.

Thank you for life. Thank you for wanting me and not giving up when the doctors told you it would be impossible for you to have a baby.

Thank you for adoring me.  Thank you for writing about the sweet, intimate, and funny moments we shared when I was a baby. Had you not taken the time to notice these things and document them, they would be lost.

Thank you for letting me know that at 9 months I was both sweet and bratty. Sweet by pointing at new things and softly asking, “What’s that?” Bratty by biting you and my dad when I was mad, and saying “shit” when I didn’t get my way. Thanks for letting me know that when I turned one, I would walk with my hands in the air and look like I was “preaching,” and that when a car would drive by, I would say, “bye bye.”

Thank you for being cool and letting me name my dogs things like Grass and Chocolate Cake. Thank you for letting me keep a wild rabbit in the house (until he escaped).

Thank you for loving me unconditionally—even when I had a temper and said things like, “don’t look-y or touchy me,” or “I’m going to run away, but only to the yard, then I’ll be right back.”

Thank you for giving me a sister. I’m so blessed to have such a sweet sister. More than anything, I wish she had had more of you. I know you weren’t planning on leaving this world (in my baby book you wrote about how one day we would compare things once I had kids), but I’m glad that if you had to leave, you left me with a sister. Without you, we need each other.

Thank you of being proud of me, and for bragging about what a good student I was, or how beautiful, funny, and sweet I was.

As I got older, thank you for letting me play with shaving cream on the kitchen table like we did at school. And for letting me play “cooking show” by dicing carrots into tiny cubes. Thank you for always having snacks within my reach so that I could have a snack after school. Thank you for decorating for Halloween and Christmas in a way that made the holiday magical. I still remember coming home from school amazed that you had transformed the house into a Halloween house.

Thank you for letting me “help” balance the checkbook by organizing all of the returned checks by image. (This makes me laugh today, because I was working so hard at helping!) I remember looking forward to the next time we got returned checks in the mail.

Thank you for being strong through your divorce and not writing negative things about my dad in my baby book. I wish I could somehow go back and remove the pain and loneliness you felt at that time.

Thank you for always being on my side, even when I was wrong. I always felt secure with you. With you, I could be brave.

Thank you for volunteering to take my 4^th grade class to the zoo, and for buying me a journal with a lion on it so I could make notes about what I learned. Thank you for being the cool mom with gum and sharing it with the other kids in our group. I was so proud to have you there.

Thank you for dancing with me to Red Red Wine and Al Green. I’ll never hear Red Red Wine without thinking of us dancing with my toy monkey in the living room of the little trailer, and me choking the monkey when the song said, “monkey get choke.”

Thank you for letting me climb behind you in your big brown chair so that I could play with your hair. Even now, I can still imagine squeezing behind you as you tried to watch TV, talk on the phone, or work on crafts.

Thank you for letting me massage your feet. I remember looking up at you as I squeezed your toes with lotion.  I didn’t realize it then, but looking back, that was my way of letting you know that I ADORED you.

Thank you for teaching me to clean and for making it fun. Thank you for teaching me to make my bed, even though for most of your life I failed to do it well. I’ve finally got it down.

Thank you for letting my imagination grow by letting me play Office or Teacher for hours. I remember looking forward to coming home so I could play Teacher on the chalk board(s) you bought me. Thank you for repeatedly buying me silly puddy. Thank you for not being mad when I put stickers on the wall.

Thank you for sacrificing for me. Time. Money. Emotion. Thank you for being compassionate toward me, even on your last day here.

I’m so sorry for how your time here ended. I wish I had been there to help you. I wish I could have helped. I’m sorry for not acknowledging you all of these years since you’ve left. I’m sorry for trying to forget you. I’m remembering you now. And as I remember, I’m proud to call YOU my MOM.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve created a picture in my mind of what a good mom is: a mom who makes things pretty, a mom who plans creative and cute birthday parties, a mom who encourages learning. But now, when I think back on what it was like to have you as a mom, and as I recall the good feelings, I realize they had nothing to do with pretty things. The good feelings come from the times we connected—in your brown chair, sleepovers on your water bed, me sitting next to the tub talking to you as you took a bath, evenings at the kitchen table balancing the checkbook, eating dinner, or working on crafts. I’m going to keep remembering you and the kind of mom you were. And as I do this, I hope to love my sister and future children the way you loved me.

Thank you. I love you. I’m proud to have had you. I miss you.

With lots of love toward my mommy,

Finny Lynn