The hardest part was the distance.
   Becoming a mother for the first time just wasn’t that traumatic.
   The facts that we moved twice, bought our first home, got settled in a new professional atmosphere
        and were 14 hours from my parents only complicated the issue a trifle.
   Looking back on it, though, I realize now just how much I missed the closeness of family those
        three years of living in the Illinois plains.
   When Terri was born, Mom flew out to help get settled.
    I’d had a difficult time, so her comforting presence meant more to me than just an extra pair of hands
        to take care of chores.
   It meant company … another woman to talk with, when neighbors were strangers and there was
       no other family around.
   It meant the joy of watching my mother and daughter interact, knowing that they would be great friends
      in later years.
   I could hardly wait for my daughter to know the pleasure of having Grandmom around for the first prom,
      the graduations and the eventual wedding.
   It didn’t happen that way.
   Terri was only seven when her beloved Grandmom died.
   They had, indeed, become fast friends.
   Mom loved to sew for Terri; she loved to keep her on weekends and take her shopping.
   She loved every aspect of being a grandmother … much more so, I suspect, than I ever will.
   By the time my second child was on the way, Mom was fighting cancer for the second time … this one
      a losing battle that we all sensed from the start.
   At the stage when she wanted to be holding and cuddling her second granddaughter, Mom was in too much
      pain to hold even the tiniest of babies.
   Erica doesn’t remember her at all.
   Terri will never forget.
   As my girls grew, I sort of downplayed Mother’s Day.
   It was a disservice to them, I realize now.
   After all, they had a mother to fuss over, and I ended to brush that aside in my own private sorrow
      at not having mine.
   I remembered the childish cards I made, the flowers I picked and the things I did that made Mom smile
      on her special day.
   When I add to those times the ones that were probably less than pleasant for her … the times when I
      disappointed her or was less than the perfect child she always believed I was … I realize the whole value
      of my mother.
   And I see what my children are probably experiencing as well.
   Mothers are for unconditional loving.
   Mothers are there for us, no matter what.
   Mothers often don’t need to be told, or asked … they have a sense, a feeling for their children
      that comes from the instinctive love bond created at birth.
   Mothers are our best friends.
   Mothers are our severest, but most caring critics.
   Mothers are for support, encouragement and blind flattery.
   Mothers are for spoiling when we are lucky enough to have them with us.
   Mothers leave a huge hole in our lives when they are gone.
   Treat your mother with extra special affection this Sunday.

   Give back a little of what you’ve received all your life.

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