Happy Birthday to my Mom

Seventy years ago today my Mom was born. Mom, I wish you the happiest of birthdays, with many, many more to come.

Let me tell you a few things about my Mom.

1) She is the coolest Mom that one could ever hope to have. She is by turns silly and serious, but she is always strong, supportive and loving.

2) She makes wicked-good fudge. BUT... she also used to make this really awful meal called Porcupine Balls. There was no porcupine in them, but ugh... I shudder still to think of them.

3) Since I was nine, my Mom has had to be both Mom and Dad to me and my three siblings. Not an easy task for sure, but one that she has approached head-on, rarely faltering.

4) She has always been the best at reading stories. In "The Monster at the End of This Book", she always did a Grover voice, that still makes me happy. When I was a kid I also loved the Winnie the Pooh story where he got wedged into Rabbit's Hole after eating too much honey. In art imitating life, she once locked herself out of her home and wedged open a window enough that she "thought" she would be able to fit through. She didn't have to wait quite as long as Pooh to get free, but she admits there was a moment of panic!

5) She has always been my biggest fan and biggest supporter. Though I all too often think that I can't do something, she is just as often there to tell me that yes, I can.

6) She certainly has a sense of adventure that has not diminished with age. Last year at sixty-nine years old, and with little coaxing, she packed up her old life, and moved back to PEI, the home that she had left fifty years before.

7) She stands 4'10" tall. I call her "the little troll", and I mean it lovingly! She actually has the force of a giant and an ogre wrapped in one little package. Again, I mean that lovingly.

8) She is my Mom, and I am very happy that I am lucky enough to be her daughter.

Happy Birthday!!!


The real religion of the world comes from women much more than from men - from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our souls in their bosoms. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes