Caregiving, one year later

Perhaps one of the hardest things for me to experience this past year has been all of the memories social media keeps reminding me of on a daily basis. Don't get me wrong, some of the pictures are hilarious. I smile at posts about the babies that were born or the accomplishments that had been made. Some days I've had my own football reel of highlights. But peppered in amongst all of that, there have been reminders of each & every single blog I wrote last year, both for escape & to share our family's story. These are gut wrenching for me.
The irony that my beloved WR/K/TE's first varsity football homecoming game is also the anniversary of gma's first Homecoming has not escaped me. In recent days, I've found myself having a little more difficulty coping, at least without tears. My hallelujah is just tired.
Being the hands, feet, heart & soul of Jesus, here on earth, is a demanding & overwhelming task at times. My physical body feels this fatigue that sleep just can't relieve. My mind & heart worry constantly that this momma, the one I am now, is the only momma my kids will have from now on or the only one they'll remember. Not the one who could spin any situation into a reason to give God praise. Not the one who saw creation new, everyday, in a vibrant array of colors with the wonderment of a small child still, but the one who seems to be missing a color, seen through the dull glasses of Homesickness. Not the one who seemed far more emotionally stable or at least didn't cry as much.
As the memories of the snarky, gray haired woman replay in my newsfeed, heart & mind I see:
Gma&momma dancing that first night after she fell as we tried to figure out how this all was supposed to work.
Momma curling her hair with the systematic smoothness I don't think any of the rest of us could have had.
The smile on her face when Aunt Suzie called her from the hospital.
Aunt Birdie showing her how to work the tablet so she could escape into solitaire for hours.
Hummingbirds, Dr Stanley, cheese & garlic pepper oatmeal, purple satin nightgowns.
Her reaching to Heaven the second to last night we would have with her, no doubt preparing us.
I hear "Thank you Jesus."
But I also see:
The pain, the nausea, the weariness.
The last interaction I had with her, begging me to let her go, slapping at me in pain, as momma tried to clean her up a bit.
And I feel like my hallelujah is broken. But maybe that's just it - It is meant to be.
It's widely known that hallelujah means "Praise ye the Lord." But perhaps what isn't known is that, in the Greek, it is an imperative verb conjugation. That means it is a command. "You, wherever you are, whatever you're experiencing right now, no matter how you feel, PRAISE THE LORD."
In my brokenness, I've felt a peace & a comfort that I just can't explain to you. In my weariness, God tells my Gma P to say to me, "I can't tell you how much I appreciate what you & your momma do," words Gma B would say that calmed my tired heart. In my darkness, God gave me a little girl who never fails to draw pictures with little sayings like, "In the rain, I'll look for rainbows. In the darkness, I'll look for stars." In my sadness, I hear, "Thank you Jesus" and I'm snapped back to words of praise.
The hallelujah I had before was yesterday's hallelujah. It wasn't meant for today. Today, in my brokenness there is a different hallelujah, a different reason to praise Him. One that sees gma in that beautiful great white throne room Revelation tells us about, with her true love, Jesus. Telling him face to face, "Thank you" over & over again. Singing with the saints who have all gone before us, "Holy, holy, holy are You, Lord, God Almighty." Just about the time my hallelujah is worn out, weary & done, God gives me a new song. Because that's just how faithful he is.

He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Psalm 40:3a

Sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things. Psalm 98:1a

Chores, lies & a beautiful princess

All I did was ask a question she'd heard many times before - Who are you? Maybe it was the circumstances. Maybe she was just ready to tell me. Either way, I'm glad she did.
Last night as Brian and I sat in the livingroom discussing a problem common to every household - chores - unbeknownst to us, our precious, sensitive little Piggy laid a room away taking in every word that was being said. I must have gone on for close to 45 minutes just telling him about how little help I had been getting, how it was causing my back to hurt so badly by the end of the day that I needed my pain meds, how I just couldn't keep it up. You know the general mom stuff.
I stopped long enough to take a potty break when I took the few steps of a detour to her doorway. My initial thought was, "Why is she still awake at 1130? She knows better & should have been asleep an hour ago." But thankfully before my mouth could open, following my frustrated brain's lead, my eyes caught a glimpse of a tear as she sat there, frantically writing away.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm writing myself a note," she choked through the tears & kept on writing.
I walked through the doorway & over to her bed. I leaned down to find out what could possibly be so important that she was still writing. I was obviously still frustrated. My hardened heart instantly shattered as I read the lies my daughter had written about herself.
"Dear future self, I hope that I'm being helpful. I want to say that I hope I'm not a bratty, sneaky, cry baby anymore. I'm sloth-like, sassy, lazy, useless & a careless jerk. I'm a thief & a mess-maker......"
No words. There was nothing I could say to this precious little girl who heard what was being said, internalized it then translated it into something far worse than I could ever have imagined or said. I turned and walked out but quickly returned with the beaten up, paper stuffed, marked & remarked Bible she'd seen me read from before. I knelt down beside her bed & placed it between us. She laid her pencil down & stared straight head, avoiding eye contact with me. I took her hand and began to read to her, through my own tears - For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in that secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
"My precious girl, this is who God says you are. You are fearfully & wonderfully made. He knew long before today everything that would happen. He even knows what you will & won't do later. But you know what? He loves you so much & thought you were so worth it that he sent Jesus for you anyway. These things aren't who God says you are. Who does God say you are? Who are you?"
And there it was. I know the images she saw in her head when I asked that question because they were the same ones I saw. It was a smaller version of herself, laying in that hospital bed last fall with her great grandma whispering in her ear the question that had been asked so many, many times before. I could see that grey hair fall down around my little girl's face as gma cupped it with those delicate, wrinkled hands. Gma drew her so close that their noses were touching. "GiGi, I'm a child of The King." Then they giggled, kissed each other's cheeks & laid there until I sent her home for the evening.
But tonight, my Hope whispered it to me, "Momma, I'm a child of The King."
I took her note from her. "That's right my sweet girl. All those lies that you heard before, the ones you wrote down, none of those are who you really are. So I'm going to take this. You are a daughter of the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate & almighty God. Who is slow to anger & abounding in love. How do you know?"
"Because momma, I asked Jesus to come into my life."
Woah! Wait. A. Minute. "You did? When?"
"At Bible study one night. When Ms Adcock & Ms Soltman were my teachers."
My wheels started turning. That was THREE YEARS AGO. I grinned. "Can I tell you a secret? I already knew. I didn't know when, but I knew. I've seen Jesus in you. Like when you love on people that others don't. Or when you cry on vacation because someone you don't even know was made fun of by others. Or when you helped to take care of Gigi everyday like you did without complaining. I knew. And another secret? Gigi knew too. She & I had already talked about it. It was one of the last conversations we had. When you love Jesus, others can see there's something different about you."
All I did was ask a question she'd heard many times before - Who are you? Maybe it was the circumstances. Maybe she was just ready to tell me. Either way, I'm glad she did. A night that began with my complaining exposed the lies my daughter was beginning to believe about herself and ended with a resounding answer -
She IS a child of The King!

Unexpected Joy

I just stood & stared. What in the world was that little piece of red in amongst the grow up weeds? Growing up in the east Texas country, red on the ground typically meant only one thing - the dreaded East Texas Coral Snake! My danger radar shot through the roof until my eyes began to focus more - this was only a single red flat something or other. No black. No yellow. No tubular body. With this new found confidence, I braved it enough to bend over to have a closer look. JOY?
What I at first thought was one of the most poisonous creatures known to all Texans turned out to be a dirty, entangled, old Christmas decoration made out of nothing but simple foam. It seemed as though this once useful little object, that brought purpose with its presence, had been discarded & abandoned. I snapped a few pictures of it where it laid, then picked it up & moved it to a place with more traffic so that others might be as puzzled by its placement as had I.

My momma texted me tonight, just like she does every night to tell me that she loves me. Only this time her text included, "Jeff said he's coming to church tomorrow. He's bringing his trumpet to play a few songs. I told him to play one for me. I love you very, very much."
You wouldn't think a little text about a trumpet would bring me to my knees. But it did.
My little brother towers over me by nearly a foot at 6'9". He towers most people though. He's a gentle giant who quickly learned that sports just weren't his thing. Oh, but the talent he's been given to play that trumpet. I hear him occasionally, playing on his front porch. The sweet, old hymns he plays are music for my heart, as they are for many others. I stop whatever I'm doing & sing with him from a football field away, a fact he's never known.
For Christmas, as far back as I can remember, momma & my gmas only ever wanted one thing - to hear Jeff play. That's why the text from momma took me back for a moment. The last time I sat & watched my brother play was October 19, the night before Gma B went home.
She had teetered that day between fretfulness & being completely unresponsive. When my husband walked through the back door that night in tears, the news he gave only added to the grief I was trying to handle. His cousin, Tonya, had been found that day, unresponsive & the Drs gave no hope for her. I was devastated. Out of all of his cousins, I was the closest to Tonya. We sat there in the silence for a while until we heard the music beginning to play on the front porch. It was Jeffrey. With that same old trumpet. Momma, my cousin Erin, and I walked to gma's room. Her tent of a body was still there & so we sang to her. The music, those words of those songs brang us all the peace & comfort that God could give us. It was almost more than I could bear.
But that would be the last time I would watch my brother play, as he offered the only thing he had to give, and God magnified it into something so much greater.

In the morning, I'll sit with my friends, some that live inside & some that live outside. I'll attempt to hold a straight face as my brother plays, bringing peace, comfort & joy to my heart again. I'll think about that JOY I found, dirty & in the weeds this week . How it had been a part of a kit intended to make something simple into something fabulous. How God gave me his joy to make my life fabulous & complete, even when life just keeps on coming. How that joy has gotten overgrown by the weeds of life & battered by the storms that are still raging on around me. How it is frequently discarded & abandoned when my eyes fail to focus on the one who is in control. It's dirty & needs to be brushed off. It needs to be put up in a place in my life so that others can see it & wonder - What in the world?
I never would have suspected that these memories, a simple foam Christmas decoration & a talented trumpet player would bring me to this place. But it's so like God to do something completely unexpected just when I need him most.

Sweetest Name I Know

A few weeks ago while we were visiting family in Garland, I mentioned that the Spanish church we were sharing our space with that week sang songs that I knew. It was then that I was told the songs that I had grown up with, singing Sunday to Sunday, were new to a lot of churches. These hymns that seemed to have fallen by the wayside within the English speaking church had just recently been accurately translated into Spanish. I remember thinking how awesome it was that though our words sounded different, our hearts were saying the same thing.

I spent the evening with my Aunt B today. In a year of firsts, today we soberly realized that this day was the first day last year that life as we had known it was winding down. A year ago today I watched my momma & my gma dance for the first time. But today, for the first time, I reflected on all of the details lost in the blog post I wrote last year.
Momma & gma danced because gma had fallen that morning. We were sure that she had broken her recently healed hip as the telephone cord jumped right in front of her, tripping her up & causing her to take the tumble she wouldn't recover from. I remember the anxiety of the day. I remember waiting for the x-ray machine to come to the house - that was such a God thing. I remember watching my daddy & my brother pick her up & carry her to the bed. I remember the moaning & the pain that caused. Then we watched as they picked her up again to move her back to the couch when we couldn't get the machine in the bedroom for the privacy had she requested. I remember the dark walk home that night. The first of many more to come.
But today would bring out something from deep inside me that I just didn't expect. The whirlwind of emotions I felt in the weeks & months to come have been closely rivaled by the emotions I've felt leading up to today. But for the first time in a week, I woke up this morning without that sense of dread I had been feeling. For the first time since last fall my first thought was - Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. The trio of words that were spoken from that hospital bed more times than I can count. For the first time this morning of all days though, I finally remembered gma saying them. 
In a year of firsts, it's funny how the little things come back to you. It's almost as if through all the pain God translates something you took for granted & makes it fresh & new to bring you that indescribable comfort only He can give your heart. In a year of firsts, there has been tears and laughter. There have been phones picked up & put down only to remember she wouldn't answer on the other end. There have been voicemails replayed over & over in those quiet, lonely moments. There have been memories revisited and new celebrations made. In a year of firsts, I find God being just as faithful as He was when He walked us through all that would unfold.

Tonight as I walked home, checking the fairy lights along the way, my words were much different than I had expected them to be. I found that it wasn't just my heart speaking, but my voice singing because in a year of firsts God continues translating my pain into something new.  ~  There's within my heart a melody. Jesus whispers, sweet and low, "Fear not, I am with thee. Peace. Be still. In all of life's ebb and flow." Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Sweetest name I know. Fills my every longing. Keeps me singing as I go.

Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.

All I have to give

I have always hated the term "mission trip". If you take the two words on their own by definition, you get a combined definition of a journey taken for the purpose of a task or activity. But when you dig a little deeper, you find that "mission trips" have traditionally been short term vacations with a purpose including time set aside for designated projects & activities that all make us feel super good about what we're doing for these poor people, complete with a photo montage so that you too can feel good about what I'm doing. Don't we all feel so good about what we're doing for God now? I bet he is just waiting to congratulate us. If only my arm was a little longer I could scratch my own back instead of merely just patting it. - Ok, so I added that last part for myself but seriously - look at what we in the western church call "mission trips".
So please, please, please do us both a favor & don't put me in the awkward place of telling me face to face that you're going on a mission trip. My questions would probably start with - So, how are your neighbors doing? What do you know about the culture in the place that you're going? Did you know that there are folks in our own hometown who sleep outside & that you don't have to go to _________ to "minister to" them? What does "ministering to" people even mean? When will you return to that place? Are you investing in each other's lives or merely going to "save" theirs?
Now, before you begin to get offended & start pointing fingers, please finish hearing me out. Eight years ago, I went on my very first, and last, mission trip. Eight years ago, God knew I needed a safe place & he took me to Garland, Texas to find it. In an old Gold's Gym, God met 8 heart broken adults & 9 kids in the body of one of the spunkiest little white haired ladies I've ever met. Through her, Jesus loved on us. Through the other staff members, God has taught me what the church is supposed to be like. Through the kids that would come to eat at the state's free summer lunch program & the teenagers that came to serve community service, God reminded us again what unconditional love looked like by splashing it across their faces. That summer, I had nothing to offer them. Nothing. They gave me so much more than I could have ever given them. Ever.
And so, year after year, we have returned to Garland, not on mission trip, but to reconnect with our friends, our brothers & sisters, who live here. I've got at least 4 years worth of duct tape name tags stuck to my bathroom wall as a daily reminder to pray for my boys. It's so humbling to be in a place where these elementary aged boys have people shuffle in & out on a weekly basis & yet they remember me. "Miss, didn't you have a mustache last year?" (I dressed up like King David everyday.) "Miss, didn't you put gummy worms in chocolate pudding them dig them out with your face that one time?" "Miss, can we make slime again this year?"
So when it came time to begin preparing for getting to visit with my boys, there were a lot of questions I had to ask myself. Can I go & trust that God is in control with everything that's going on with Gma P & Aunt S? Will I be able to physically do this? How can the schedule be arranged so that I can teach both the boys & the girls? But there was one question I dreaded most of all - What will you do when there's no call Wednesday night from gma asking how things are going & then praying over speaker phone for not only those of us who drove 4hrs to get here, but those at home, those who walk here, those who came to eat lunch, those who didn't AND what will you do when she's not there to take down the list of boys names & pray for them this next year?
In a room with 7 children & 3 other adults, I admit I cried myself to sleep last night. You see yesterday, we talked about how God can take our broken hearts & fix them into something new. Just about the time that those 30 boys were about to get rowdy, I smashed a beautiful red plate with a hammer. They were shocked. I asked them if anything had ever broken their hearts & watched those very active bodies sit still as I sat down on the floor in front of the stage where they were seated & told them about my gma. I told them how my heart had broken & how sometimes it still felt broken. I told them how gma loved them even though she never got to come meet them. I told them how she prayed for each of them by name everyday. It got really quiet. "But Miss? You'll see her in Heaven again one day, right?" I smiled. "Yes, and so can you. She'll love to actually meet you there."
Yesterday I realized, these boys have people who come through all summer long & want to convert them into little tiny Jesus lovers. They know all about Jesus & his 12 friends that went everywhere with him. They know about a short tax collector & a tree....which incidentally wasn't part of anything I had prepared....but anyway.... I have nothing more to offer them but myself. To be silly with them & wear a mustache. To fake the "Eww...gross" when we make slime on Friday, which also wasn't in my plan. To ask them & listen when they tell me what was for lunch. (I wish I could run downstairs & play soccer with them, but that's just not in the cards for me this year.) And to ask them again on Friday for their duct tape name tags so that I can pray for them again this year. I'm sure my momma will pray with me since gma's waiting for us.
These boys & girls don't need somebody announcing their wonderful plans to take a purpose-driven vacation. They don't need somebody to come in & re-invent the wheel of Bible school. They really don't even need me to tell them about Jesus - they have heard about him. They just need me to love them like Jesus would and that's all I really have to give them.
There are faces that I miss incredibly this year - some who have aged out, some who have moved on, some who are out of town for a while. But this is NOT eight years of mission trips for me & our birth children - this has been eight years of being completely invested, giving everything I am & everything I'm not. Eight years of boys. Eight years of laughter & tears God has given me. Eight years of watching them grow up a week at a time. Eight years of God writing their names on my heart. Eight years of spending a short week with our friends from a different town. Eight years of watching God grow & use the many staff members we've come to treasure & love. Eight years of being fully committed to loving & praying for them year round.
Until God tells me otherwise, I will continue giving them all I have to give, which is just myself. But because of Jesus, myself is just enough. 

He had a name

Tonight as many in our area were anxiously awaiting news reports concerning possible violence at a presidential candidate's rally, one family mourned, for the second time, the loss of their father. They had already lost him once to choices he made that brought about the circumstances in which I would meet him.
The complexities of homelessness can not be explained in one simple blog. Nor do I profess to be an authority in the matter. What I do know is that Mr B had a name; he wasn't just some nameless, faceless drunk that roamed about the streets of Conroe. He had a story, if you only sat down to listen. He had a family. He always had a cane. And a lot of the time he had a bottle in the other hand.
Unfortunately for most, the bottle was all that they ever saw. They just couldn't look past it. Perhaps more unfortunate for others that could see past the bottle, they saw a project that needed to be fixed. It's true that Mr B often needed shoes or a pair of pants that would fit his gauntly shaped body. He needed a shower and soap, although not so much with the shampoo. He needed to eat more and drink less. But what Mr B needed most of all was to know that he was loved unconditionally.
I could honestly sit for hours & just listen to the stories from his life. Stories about his childhood, his wife, his kids. There were stories he told me about his own gpa, the many jobs that he had worked, and I can still hear him say "Brooklyn" in that thick northeast coast accent. Sometimes he'd tell the same story, forgetting a few more details from the time he had told it before. There were stories I would ask about that he couldn't remember. But there was one thing Mr B never forgot - he was deeply & unconditionally loved by a mighty God, even in the middle of all of his mess.
My path with Mr B crossed almost 7 years ago. I was immediately drawn to him because I watched the way he would interact with my children. He loved children unless, of course, they touched his cane - even though it was just a Swiffer handle this week - but that's another story for another day. Watching this 90lbs man throw a football with the boys was sometimes the highlight of our Sunday mornings together. One Christmas when we were trying to unravel the Christmas light ball, he wound himself up & urged the kids to plug him in like a Christmas tree.
We would look for him, and a few others, as we drove through certain parts of town. I always had to keep the windows unlocked so that the kids could, at a moment's notice, roll them down & yell, "Hey Mr B!" while they waved so hard I thought their hands would fall off. We'd see him in the rear view mirror, just a shakin' that cane in the air. My kids loved him unconditionally.
So tonight when I sat them down on the couch to tell them, I knew their hearts would be broken. We talked about our favorite Mr B moments & how much they'd miss him. I told them the message my friend relayed from his son, "At least we know he's not suffering anymore." And that's when it hit me - I've only ever known a broken Mr B, weighed down by the death of his wife, his go-to coping technique, & a very fractured body & mind. But the next time I see Mr B, he will be completely whole! He won't need a cane - though I'm sure he'll call it a staff just so that he can carry around a stick. He won't need shoes or a new pair of pants. And he won't need to cope with anything. I shared that with the kids & watched their sad faces change with the realization of the hope that brought.
Though gma's life was radically different from Mr B's, I knew I could share with them the same hope we found in October when we read some verses from Revelation - He's serving God in his temple, day & night. The sun isn't scorching him anymore & the heat doesn't beat down in him. He's not hungry. He's not thirsty. And God himself has once & for all wiped away all of Mr B's tears.
I'm going to miss Mr B but had I not taken the time to just sit & listen to him, I wouldn't even know his name, let alone his story. It's so easy for us to throw well meaning things, possessions, at people in hopes that we might fix what ails them. But all that stuff wears out or gets used up or lost. What doesn't wear out or get used up or lost is the time we spend just loving them. Mr B wasn't always an easy man to love, but then again, neither am I. Thankfully Jesus loves us both enough that we learned from Him how to love each other. Unconditionally.

This is Mr B. He had a name. Billy. But he also has a title - Son of The King.

A Mother's Day fable

Ya, ya, ya. So I wrote this blog about my mom on Mother's Day. Ever since then I've felt like this horrible hypocrite. Don't get me wrong, I meant every single word I said about my momma. It's just, well, it's just that that day was anything but a warm fuzzy day for me.
Aside from the giant hug from my own mom brought on by the salami cheese rolls, my Mother's Day was spent largely either in tears or on the verge of tears. The fact that there would be no trek across the field to gma's effected me more than I wanted to admit. She wasn't my mother but especially in those four months before she went Home, I morphed into this weird forth daughter kind of person. Mother's Day will never be quite the same without her. It just sucked. 
But that wasn't all that was amidst. My own children didn't seem to recognize that I deserved to be recognized that day. (Insert sarcasm here) Don't get me wrong, the instantaneous "Happy Mother's Day" from my oldest as we walked into the dollar store was welcomed but tempered with the fact that I had just mentioned it was Mother's Day. Ya, I was fishing for acknowledgement. So what? My middle guy apparently offered his own verbal version of accolades in the middle of me having to get on to him for something - a fact reported to me by my oldest so the jury is still out on the validity of the report. My youngest son? He didn't get any memos. Then there was my daughter.
Oh the lovely little pink Piggy - who had just days before in her anger thrown her soccer ball & beamed me, an innocent bystander, in the back of the head. In her anger, her stubborn side (which comes from her dad, I assure you) refused to let her apologize to me. One day. Two days. Three days passed. No apology. She walked in with this tiny bouquet of flowers from gma's yard, offered, "I'm sorry I hit you with my soccer ball. Happy Mother's Day." And there it was. My Mother's Day 2016. I know you're fabulously jealous.
Monday I spent the day fighting a horrible headache & celebrating at my pity party for one. No, really. The only thing missing was a white cake with buttercream icing. I played my music & cleaned the house so lovingly left a mess. I'm sure left that way ensuring I wouldn't get bored the day following such a fabulous outpouring of about me-ness. It sucked. Mother's Day sucks.
So this morning when my pitiful self woke up with a debilitating headache, I was sure that I'd be on my own again. When my prescription strength painkillers for my back did nothing to curb the pain, I quickly found myself on the bathroom floor, laying on my robe, trying not to expel the nothingness that was in my stomach. I cried. Surprised? I didn't think so.
When I finally made it back to the bed, a tiny face peered through the crack in the bedroom door. "Momma? Are you ok?" I motioned her to me. "I really need some water baby girl." That was it. Like a call to arms, my children, the ones who two days before failed my expectations, immediately sprung into action.
Throughout the day, there were cups of water, an offer for the thermometer, repeated trips taking out the trash & rebagging the can, peeps through the cracked door and silence. Wonderful, beautiful silence. In my stupor and fog, I had missed the tray of food they had prepared at some point - a granny smith apple cut & cored, a cinnamon bagel topped with cinnamon sugar butter they had made because we were out, a Monster and a beautiful pink carnation from Piggy's own recital bouquet with a note - We hope you feel better soon.
The gravity of what transpired today didn't hit me until the fog wore of this evening. No, my children did not set aside this one day out of the year where society & culture tell them they have to acknowledge & praise me for doing my job. What did happen was something far greater. In a time when I needed them most, they set aside themselves & served me all day long. Those acknowledgements & servants' hearts speak volumes louder than any "Happy Mother's Day" ever could. They demonstrated their love, they didn't just say it.
I like to think that all moms wonder - Are my kids ever going to "get it"? Unfortunately for me, today my kids demonstrated that not only do they get it but they get it even when I don't. It's not that they didn't love me on Mother's Day, it's that they continue loving me the other 364 days a year.