Happy Birthday Mom!

I have spent the last 45 years of my life living in the shadow of the person I can only hope to be like some day, my mom. So today, being her birthday, I wanted to give her a tribute out on my blogger space. She was born and raised in a small town in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. Her mom past away when she was only a year and a half so she never knew her mom. Her dad worked in the coal mines while her aunt took care of her brother and three other sisters but also her own daughter. Brother and sister raising a family in extremely hard times.

My mom and dad divorced when I was only 7 years old. We returned from a family vacation and found my dad had moved out while we were away leaving my mom to raise two kids of her own alone. She amazed me, and kept us both living in our family home, while she worked two jobs just to make ends meet. We rarely ever saw her except for school mornings where she would make us toast with jelly and hot tea. She was working her second job by the time we got home from school and she wouldn't return home until some time past midnight. Our only other time to see her was Sunday afternoons after brunch. It was the highlight of our week. She would divide all her tip change each day between a jar for each of us. One day, my brother would get what her tip change was that day and I got it the next. Whoever got it on Sunday would really make out because it was my mom's biggest day to make tip money as a waitress doing Sunday brunch.

She worked so hard to provide for my brother and me. We didn't have much but my mom made sure that whatever extra money she could scrape up, went to something fun for me and brother to do. She never bought anything for herself. She put her needs on the back burner for us.

People loved my mom and still do whenever they meet her. I don't know what it is, but she makes people feel at ease. I have never seen my mom lose her temper either. I guess she has managed to hide all that deep inside all these years. Something I still wished I could do but I think I picked up my dad's side of that.

She just semi retired some years ago, and has decided to become a full time grandmother and help my sister, who came along 14 years after me, raise her two kids. So my mom after all these years is still thinking of others before herself. She is the true meaning of the word, serving others first! It's never even a second thought for her.

She is a mother of three and a grandmother of 5 who think the world of her everyday even though she made never realize it. She has made the world a better place, simply just by her being in it.

Here are some questions I wanted to ask her.

1. What is your favorite childhood memory? Going to Atlantic City because it was shared with the whole family.

2. What are your three favorite smells and why? Blueberry because of blueberry pie and we used to go huckleberry picking when I was a child; roses because they are my favorite flower, my favorite color is red rose; Oranges and Lemons cause they smell fresh and clean.

3. What was the one piece of advice you have received growing up? Family is the most important thing in my life and always will be.

4. If you could go anywhere in the world where would you like to go? I would like to go to Hawaii since I have never been there and have always heard some awesome things about it. Second would be back East to visit my family.

5. What is your biggest regret? I didn't stay in the Navy as a career, because there are so many benefits once you reach 20 years for people especially for a woman. One of my biggest regrets was to tell my mother in law off when I had to. I wished I would have had some gumption to say things to her that deserved to be said but I was raised in a time where we had to keep quiet. Now I don't have to just take the things people tell me I can have an opinion of my own.

So in a nutshell, I wanted to thank her for being born and giving me some vital lessons that I have been able to pass along to my own family. She has taught me self sacrifice is a great tool for providing the love to your family and it's something that can never be taken away from you. She has taught me that hard work goes a long way towards selling yourself. It shows reliability and dependability as well as great character and ethics, something severely lacking in today's work place. So Happy Birthday today Mom! We love and miss you when you aren't around.

Love your family!