Happy Mother’s Day (one day late) to all the Moms out there! The timing for my special message to you is always off for Mother’s Day since my blog posts on Mondays and Mom’s Day is always a Sunday. Sending the message, a week early seems wrong, so I’m going with one day late just to stretch the feelings of gratitude for all who play the role of mom in someone’s life.

In one of my morning “angel walks” last week the feelings of missing my Mom came up. I never know when the old emotions of missing her will just spring to life. More often than not, it seems to be for no reason. But this time, I was thinking about Mother’s Day coming up. Of course, my memories of her are vast, but there are always two memories that seem to come to the top.

The first one is the year my mom went with me to Disney World. My eldest niece had turned 5 and I sprung for the whole family to race to the place of magic. Mostly I did it because I wanted to see Kristyn’s reaction to Disney at the perfect age of 5. I was surprised when mom said she would come. She was already having some trouble getting around, but I was thrilled she agreed.

The first day, my sister and I suggested that mom get a wheel chair and let us see that she got places, but she refused. After being totally exhausted, the 2nd day she agreed and the rest of the trip was great. Honestly, I lost about 6 pounds that week pushing her everywhere, but I was a gym rat at that point in my life so I was happy for the exercise I wasn’t getting at the gym that week. It is a joy to me that my mom was with me in all the Disney World parks even if it was only that one time.

The other memory that always comes up for me was taking my mom on her twice a year trips from Knoxville to Cincinnati where her sister lived. It was about a 5 – 6 hour drive and all I had to do was get her started and she would talk the whole way there. A simple question like “What was Glenn (her brother) like as a kid?” and BOOM! She would fill my head with stories the whole trip about growing up and the rest of her brothers and sister. I loved it. Sometimes (almost) scandalous stories would come up that would shock me!

I loved that. I miss that a lot.

I was blessed with the greatest mom I could ever imagine. She is a huge part of who I am and I am grateful for that. As I do every year, yesterday I visited her memorial site with the pink roses she loved so much.

Happy Mother’s Day Mom. An again, Happy Mother’s Day to all of you Moms out there.

Angel Blessings,

~Radleigh