Mothers

I'm currently reading a book called "We're Just Like You Only Prettier: Confessions of a Tarnished Southern Belle." It's hilarious! I'm laughing out loud through the whole book. Then I hit a chapter about mothers day. She (the author-Celia Rivenbark) talks about making her mother an ashtray in school for mother's day, then the next year making a piece of art out of a paper plate and macaroni. She talks about how as an adult she is usually rushing at the last minute to get gifts for her mother and mother-in-law and she sees her 4 year old daughter spend weeks working on an art project made out of rocks, feathers and colored paper that she puts her heart into. She talks about how she needs to go back to the macaroni magic. She states,

"So the macaroni magic will not be craft induced for me. Maybe not for you either. It can be simply sitting and talking under the sycamore tree in the backyard of the home you grew up in.
On day, it will be my daughter who will be scowling in line at the gift-wrap counter, and she will have long forgotten a sunny May afternoon when she was four and so excited about her Mother's Day project that she couldn't even sleep the night before.
That's life. I know it. And I know something more: that on those long days when we in the sandwich generation feel squeezed and spent and are tempted to grouse about being either mother or daughter, we should be fall-on-our-knees grateful for both.
Because the trush is simple. Our time is fleeting and dear. As a good friend explained it, one day it is our mother who is buying us the Chatty Cathy that we begged for; the next, or so it seems, we find ourselves taking a baby doll as a gift to a mother in the nursing home. It has always struck me that women in nursing home beds almost always have baby dolls in their rooms. I suspect it is because they remind them of the happiest time of their lives. I know it is mine.
One day, in a hospital room somewhere, you will hold a hand that you can't even recognize anymore. It may be thin and dry and tiny, the rings way too big even with the guards you bought for her at the jewelry store.
Look closer and you'll recognize the hand that pushed you in the swing, the one that felt your burning forehead when you were sick, the one that stroked your hair the first time you had your heart broken and cried for a solid three hours.
For all of you mothers, for all of you who want to be mothers, for all of you "other mothers" who nurture children not your own, may you have a lifetime of Mother's Days filled with your own brand of macaroni magic. I plan to."

I sit here with tears streaming down my cheeks thinking about all of the mothers I've had in my life. I'm so grateful for each and everyone of them. They have made me who I am today. I'm most especially grateful for my own mother. She has spent the last 32 years telling me I'm beauitful, I'm talented and I'm loved over and over again. And even though there are times when I don't believe it or feel I deserve it, I love hearing it from her because I know she truely means it. Mom, I love you with all my heart and words can't express how much you mean to me and how thankful I am to our Heavenly Father that I have you. I hope that you never forget that and that you never forget that I'm always here for you with any help you may need; no matter how small or large. You are my first best friend, my first confidate, my first example. I'm truely who I am today because of you. I hope to bring the macaroni magic back into your life.