Even though my mother has been gone for almost 20 years, it feels important to acknowledge her on Mother’s Day.

After all I had the best mother ever! She let her band of four kids roam the lake and woods together without getting upset when we came home wet and muddy.

She fixed meals for her family of six every single day even when she’d worked all day at running her retail business downtown.

She supported our interests whether it was music or writing or photography or swimming or boating or building forts in the woods. She encouraged us to be the best we could at whatever we loved.

She sacrificed things she might have wanted to do in order to provide us the ability to do the things we cared about.

She smiled when we painted her a card or brought her flowers from the field, no matter how crazy our art was or how wilted the flowers.

And she loved that we all turned out to be productive and independent people, in no small part because of her.

Thanks, mom, for pushing us and putting up with us and loving us through all the muddy, crazy years. I hope you have the most beautiful flowers up there in heaven, though I’m sure you won’t think they compare to those we picked for you decades ago.