I remember the first time I ever got in a fight with my mom. Maybe not the first time… But the first fight that was significant. I wanted to spend the night with my friends and she told me no. Little did I know the cheer squad was going to kidnap me that night for initiation so I kind of needed to be home.

Problems are problems. I know.

It wasn’t the actual fight that was so memorable. I’m pretty sure we exchanged all of like 5 words. It was more of what my dad said when he came in to defuse the situation. Let me set this up by saying my dad grew up with 5 brothers and then lived in a home with a wife, two daughters, a girl dog and handfuls of fish we relentlessly named after girl princesses or something… So he mainly just stayed out of the way.

But that night. That night he came into my room and said something that I will never forget. He sat me down on the bed, looked me in the eyes, and said “If anything ever happened to you or your sister. Your mom would die.”

Which in reality was really out of character for the fact that I was just kind of bummed about not getting to go to a slumber party.

But he was completely right.

My mom’s entire life is us.  It might not have been before. She might not have grown up wishing for children (maybe she did, I don’t really know). But the moment we were born, we became her reason for living.

She spends her days waiting for us to call – My sister in the morning with the kids, me right after. Then me again. And again. And again. Then my sister after the kids get back from school. Then me like 5 more times. She waits up for us at night even though we don’t live at home any more. She cries when we cry, and she still sees everything I purchase because I refuse to unlink our bank accounts.

My mom has made me the woman I am today, because of the woman she has always been. I wouldn’t trade her for a single thing in the world, in fact she is my world. And I can’t thank her enough for all she has done.