My Mother…Happy 70th Birthday

By: Daniel E. Kramer

I think about you a lot, but I don’t always tell you. You held me for years and rocked me to sleep. You feed me and cooked night after night. You woke me each morning, prepared me a bath, helped me get dressed and then kissed me goodbye. Every day I arrived home from school and you were there to help me; help me with homework, life, take me to practice, or just visit.

You helped me to build things, and encouraged me. When dad was on field trips we feed the animals at the farm together. So many times working in the yard, and I can still remember the smell of those summer mornings, the lawn mower outside running, you gardening. Then there was the endless pool cleaning you did, and the maintaining of hundreds if not thousands of flowers, all of it just so others could enjoy. We would paint the deck together, your butter lemon chicken on the BBQ, and warm soups of all kinds in the winter months that had the flavor of your kind loving care.

You took care of grandma, your brother, all of my friends, my sister, and dad. You always kept the home fires burning. When dad was away at work or when he needed your help you were always there. You cared for thousands of animals during your time. Literally hundreds of wounded babies crying in need; lambs, calves, kittens and puppies. You raised birds, bunnies, and even helped with my snakes and lizards.  Even scruffy the snail, with his little broken shell, was a life you helped me to care for.  All the early mornings you spent with Dad, hauling in the hay, feeding the animals, watering the plants, and then off to work. You headed each day to work, often after working so hard, just to help other people’s children learn and grow. You taught for more than 40 years, and each night of each day of each of those years you came home to take care of us, all of us; even the snakes and lizards.

You coached me Mom. You taught me to be better. You are honest, and you are sweet, and you have integrity. You are smart, and intuitive. Why did you put up with me? How could a mother’s love have endured my awful teenage revolt, the one where I kept you up all the nights long worried and scared? How could a mother’s love be so strong to forgive me for my tantrums, like the time I threw the hand held paper hole-punch to the ground in a fit of rage, causing a ricochet into the fish tank; cracks, springing waters, and my utter shock? 

You are a gift, and I am so lucky to have you in my life. So many without mothers wish for you, and so many that already have them wish theirs could be like you. How is it that you have been so remarkably happy and good spirited all these years, so pleasant and nice to be around?  The world around us seems to ebb and flow into hardened times, softer times, from slower to faster paced, and all the while you seem steady. My Mother is a rock. She is solid and composed of strong material that doesn’t weather or erode. Maybe that is why you married a geologist, and maybe that is why I am one now too.

Time is of the essence to say these things. I never ever tell you this. I never get past the part of saying I love you. It is something that I cannot explain; why can’t I tell you all these things, why do I have to write it out? Maybe because it makes me too emotional, or maybe because I want to believe deep in my heart that you will always be here no matter what. Maybe that can be, maybe?

You are older now, and I hope that your 70th birthday is a great one. I hope we can aspire to deliver you something worthy of this day, but I simply know that we cannot. It is an impossible moment, the appreciation of a child’s love for their mother.  Now I look to Nancy and see what she does for our kids, like you did for me and Leslie. Now I see the struggles and tribulations though the eyes of an adult, a father. Now I wait for my turn to try to love my children when they rage into their youthful uprising rebellion.  Will I be able to do it too, like you did?  Maybe and maybe not, but the model you left to me is one I will try to embody; kindness, compassion, understanding, and sticking through it until the end.

Thank you for listening to me for all the years, and for being alive, and being wonderful. Thank you for all the amazing things you have done for me, and thank you for being Lauren. You are a mother, a wife, a friend, a sister, a daughter, a grandmother, an aunt, a teacher, a farmer, a caregiver, a chef, a gardener, a lover, and a fighter. You don’t give up. You never have once in my life show an instance of giving up.

I am proud to know you and be able to spend time with you today, and I am excited for the future. We all have so much life to live and experience still, so many events to attend and share. But if none of that were to ever come to pass, I would just want you to know that it is already enough just having you in my life for all these years. How could anyone ask for any more than this? I love you Mom, Happy 70th Birthday.