“Share the best moments of your life with your children as often as you can. Someday when your memory fails they will be happy to share them with you.” -Unknown

A very wise person once said, “By the time a woman realizes her mother was right, she has a daughter that thinks she is wrong.”  Isn’t that the true circle of life?  The complicated relationship between mother and daughter isn’t exclusive to my house, nor is it a new concept.  To this day my mother and I go back and forth and round and round about almost every topic, as well as my daughter and I.  But we always come back to the place where we know how much we love and respect each other.  The mother and daughter relationship is one of the most significant and hard to understand.

My post today is dedicated to the first person in my life, MY MOTHER.  Where do I start?   How do I talk about a person, who dedicated most their life to me?  My mom is truly the crème de la crème, in the mother department.  She has taught me that nothing it too hard to accomplish and has always been my biggest cheerleader.  She is nurturing and one of the strongest people I’ve ever known.  She always puts others before herself, is honest, kind and someone I aspire to be like some day.

I have continually learned from my mother by example.   She is not one of those moms that is, a “do as I say, not as I do,” kind of parent.  She puts her money where her mouth is.  As I mentioned before, the circle of life, my mother now has to take care of her own mother.  My mom is struggling with one of the harshest things to deal with in life, an elderly mother with the Alzheimer’s disease.   My mother is not running away or thinking of herself, she is showing how strong she is and is currently acting as her mother’s caregiver.  My mother has taken the bull by the horns (that would be my grandmother, for those who have not met her) and done the best she knows how, with a very small support system.   Of course she sometimes complains along the way, it’s tough and she’s not Mother Teresa, but my mother never gives up. 

My mom is watching her mother slip away from her every day, memory by fading memory.  I can’t relate to what she must be going through, slowly losing her mom, the first person she ever knew.  She is a ball of emotions, up and down and she has every right to be.  Another wise unknown once said, “Share the best moments of your life with your children as often as you can.  Someday when your memory fails they will be happy to share them with you.”    I know as much of a burden and a terrible experience they are going through, my mother is cherishing the moments she gets to spend with her own mother and sharing those old memories together.  My mother doesn’t do any of this because there is a prize at the end; she knows the prize is the last bit of time she is spending with her mom before she forgets.   My mother does it because it’s what you do and the relationship between mother and daughter is important.

We should all take some time with our mothers and appreciate all that they have given us, not just this Sunday on Mother’s Day, but every day.  Listen to those stories your mom is telling you, over and over again, someday you may have to share them with your mom.  Thank you mom, for showing me how it’s supposed to be done, I am still learning from your examples every day.  I love you.  Happy Mother’s Day.