A Letter to My Mother

Author's Note:

Previously, I had written a letter to my father and sent it to him. It worked out wonderfully, and I decided to send one to my Mom as well. Hers will be for Mother's Day, as a small token of my appreciation for her being such a great mother. She inspired me in more ways than I can begin to express. This letter is a feeble attempt to let her know.

Mom, I love you and all you've done for me!

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Letter to my Mother

Mom,

I know we probably don't talk on the phone as often as you would like, and I'm truly sorry about that. I feel that the conversations we do have, are always meaningful. We don't usually waste too much time talking about trivial things, do we?

I want you to know, that despite all the challenges that life has presented me, that you have inspired me to do the amazing things that I have. I owe a lot of myself to my father, but also to you, my mother. You were always my role model, instilling in me the idea that I could do anything I put my mind to. You have no idea how much strength you gave me to overcome so many things later in my life.

You lead by example, and I saw that. From back when I was little and spending time with you at the Ripon Hospital, to when I would hang out with Dad, while you were working hard at night school. You never gave up, and that was what I saw. That was how I have always tried to live my life.

I have few regrets in my life, and I again attribute that mostly to you. Whenever I've had a chance to do something amazing, I've tried to grab it. There was an amazing professor from Carnegie Mellon, Randy Pausch, that gave a passionate speech to a graduating class. It would be his last, but in it he said something profound to me. He said, "It is not the things we do in life that we regret, on our death bed, but the things that we do not do."

When I hear that, I think of all the things that I've done and seen. I don't have many regrets, but there are things I wish I could be better at. In my personal and professional lives, I've been challenged to do things that I hadn't ever dreamed of, back when I was a teenager. I'm sure you can relate. When you grew up, I'm sure you had different ideas about what you would see later in life, too.

Now that I'm an adult, I look back and understand all the things that you went through as a parent. I know that being my mom probably wasn't easy, as much as you always say that it was. I still have nothing but fond memories of our time together in the house I grew up in, even though half the time I was trying to figure out how to get my little brother to leave me alone. Again, I'm sure you remember those years differently, as we were NOT very good about getting along. Ha ha ha.

I won't say much about you and Dad, other than it made me sad for a while. Things change. People change. I get that, and don't have any anger towards either of you about anything. If nothing else, mostly just confusion abounds. I have always felt that I could talk to you about anything, but haven't yet had the right moment to talk more about that. Someday I would like to, but it's not urgent. Mostly, I just want to know what I missed out on when I was serving over in Germany, or when I was home and didn't know any better. Maturity in relationships took me a while, and probably didn't really take hold until I had moved out. Enough about that.

You tell me that you are proud of me all the time, but sometimes I feel like I should say it to you. I'm proud of what you've accomplished professionally. I'm proud to call you my Mom, and that will never change. I'm proud of the things that you've done, and the places that you've visited. You are strong for your family, and have maintained a VERY strong bond with your sisters and brother. When most families that I see don't, ours is still very close. It's distressing to me that more families aren't like ours. I miss that terribly, by living so far away. It's not a regret, but living where I do, comes at a huge cost.

As we grow, I want to talk to you more, about the stuff that we always ignore. We always have so little time together, and on the phone, that we usually just say the quick updates about our lives. During your one visit, where you and I ate lunch at that sub-sandwich place, I felt we really talked. Some of it was about deep stuff like my marriage, but we didn't do the usual phone thing.

I would like more of that. I want to really get to know the person that you are, and were before I came along. I know some details, but when I saw a picture of you, when you were a teenager dancing on that patio out at the lake cabin, I wish I could have been there. I wish I had a time-machine, so that I could travel back in time to watch the person you used to be, to meet that girl. I really want to meet her, just like I want my kids to meet the guy that you knew as I grew up.

I won't make a promise that I can't keep, but I will promise to try harder. You know me. I'm terrible with calling people on the phone. It's just never been my strong suit, and I even laugh with my best friend Matt, when we both agree that we suck at calling each other. At least I'm not alone in this (chuckle).

I love you, Mom. I hope you have a wonderful Mother's Day, and I will be calling you as often as I can kick myself to remember.

Love forever,
Your Son

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This wasn't written for a score. This was an attempt by me to put words to how I feel about someone special in my life. For anyone that can relate to anything in this letter, I hope you have a wonderful relationship with your mother, too. Obviously, I need to work on calling mine more! Thanks for reading!