07/16/2011 - A little late.

Here's last week's sadly overdue posting.  I decided to break from fiction and post something from correspondence instead.  This is a letter I wrote to my mother for Mother's Day this year.

Dear Mom;

One day each year we're supposed to celebrate one of the most amazing things ever, mothers.

Everyone has one, so they're common but somehow each one is extraordinary. They carry us around inside their bodies for about nine months, then in their arms for years and in their hearts forever.

A mother watches over you when you sleep, feeds you when you wake, and guides your hungry mind with answers to incessant questions, like "Why?".


Sometimes, we're angry or frustrated because our mothers treat us like children, but the fact is we are children until we're not, and mothers will know when that is long before we will.

Mothers are never perfect; they have flaws, go tilting at windmills, chasing phantoms and delusions just like any of the rest of us.  But they have the most powerful incentive to return to reality, their children.

The fact that any of those children anywhere ever makes it to adulthood is a powerful testament to the power of her love to overcome mountains of poop, overturned cereal bowls, embarrassing public utterances, panicked moments in shopping centers where the child has wandered off to play with toys, adolescent rebellion, and every other torture intentional or not.

For all those little miracles, we've set aside this day.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom.  You've more than earned it.

Love,

Your Son

© 2011 Matt Converse - All rights reserved.