Happy Mother's Day! I wish I could be there for to celebrate like years past, or to even just give you a hug. Of course that can't happen, so I'm writing instead.
We have, without doubt, had our rough moments. There are frequent disagreements, there have been screaming fights ending with slammed doors. The memory of your reaction when I cut my then two year Kairi's hair as short as a boys still frightens me a little (for everyone else reading, I was grounded a month for that one), and there are times I have found myself glad that I live so far away because sometimes that distance is needed. That being said, I wouldn't trade you for anything. You made my life amazing, and I know I owe you more than I could ever repay. Here is a thank you for just a few of the millions of things you've done for me.
Thank you for your decision to homeschool in such a way that I learned how fun learning can be. Thank you for constantly playing Mary Chapin Carpenter through the years so that I could fall in love with her songs. Thank you for showing me how wonderful books are before I was even able to read by playing me books on tape. Thank you for letting me sleep in every day so I could stay up reading late at night. Thank you for saving your Trixie Belden books from when you were a child so that I too could experience her adventures.Thank you for giving me the best birthday parties growing up, and for making my memories of holidays some of the favorite I own. Thank you for making almost too big a deal about achievements like awards and graduations.Thank you for your love of adventure and dreams of exploring the world that you then passed on to me. Thank you for encouraging me to follow those dreams even if that meant leaving home behind, and thank you for being one of the few people who seem to understand why, despite how much I miss home, it's necessary for me to not be there right now. Thank you for not letting me spend my childhood in front of the tv, for making me read, or play games, out enjoy the outdoors instead. Thank you for forcing me to go camping and hiking when I was young, because that led to my deep love of nature now. Thank you for moving to Alaska so I could learn where my true home was. Thank you for Big Bend, Germany, roadtrips through Canada, and long drives across the US. Thank you for making clothes for Samantha when I was little, and for me too. Thank you for years of Saturday morning sourdough pancakes breakfasts and waffles on Sunday, and for always getting us the real maple syrup instead of of the cheaper fake stuff. Thank you for all the years you made me chocolate Malt-o-Meal with milk and colored sugar, to this day I can't quite make it like you did. Thank you for letting me go through my hair dying phase fairly young, and for not making an issue of it when you woke up one morning to find your brunette child had dyed her hair black overnight. Thank you for mushing, dance classes, violin lessons and ice skating. Thank you for giving me an understanding hug and letting me cry when Michelle Kwan lost the Olympics in 1998, and then again four years later. Thank you for being there at the hospital the night I broke my ankle and holding my hand as my already painful ankle was twisted to an excruciating degree to get the cast set right. Thank you for coming to comfort a frightened five year old when I had woken up crying from a dream that still makes my top 10 list of worst nightmares ever. And thank you for last year, for not only seeing how much trouble I was in, but for standing up to something stronger than us both and forcing me into health and recovery - at great mental, emotional and financial expense to you. To say that you saved my life is not even remotely an understatement.
I love you, always and forever,
KC
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