Monthly Archives: May 2014

Dear Mom

Bryan, Chad, Corey, Family, Kelly

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In December I wrote a letter to my kids. For Mother’s Day, they wrote me back.

Dear Mom,

Over the course of writing you this letter we realized that putting into words how much you mean to us is not an easy task. In fact, we’re all in agreement with Maya Angelou who said, “To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow.” But in the end we decided that if even the great Ms. Angelou couldn’t find the words, then we’ve got nothing to lose.

So here goes.

You, Mom, are our sunny days. You’re our cool breezes and our first snowfalls. You’re our sunrises, our sunsets and our shooting stars. To each of us you embody friendship and happiness, shelter and warmth. At times you have been both our closest confidant and our biggest fan. Yours has always been the number we’ve dialed during happy times and sad, when we’ve felt broken or whole. While writing this note none of us could recall even a single instance that time spent with you didn’t result in us feeling better about the state of things. Even now, when anger and sadness seem like fair choices for all of us, you find beauty, just as you’ve always done.

Over the years people have inquired as to what you’re “really like,” and the truth is so simple that it’s almost unbelievable: there is only one you. You treat every person you come in contact with with the same fairness and kindness and compassion, and you lend a listening ear to anyone who needs it. To say that’s rare is the understatement.

Not too long ago, when all four of us were living in different parts of the country, you mentioned how you wished your kids didn’t grow up and move so far away from you. In the words of author Barbara Kingsolver, “Kids don’t stay with you if you do it right. It’s the one job where, the better you are, the more surely you won’t be needed in the long run.”

So thank you Mom, for doing your job better. Happy Mother’s Day. We love you.

Your favorites,

Chad, Kelly, Corey and Bryan

Touch

Friends

Pic 04.23.14

Recently our friend Terry Brennan organized an outing to the Frauenthal Center for Performing Arts to see the Osmonds perform. He reserved a handicap box for our friend Cindy’s parents and I. Both of Cindy’s parents were in wheelchairs too so we had three wheelchairs in the box and I was sitting next to Cindy’s mom, Joyce. Joyce had a stroke a few years ago and was left unable to speak, but we were able to communicate through a loving touch because Joyce held my hand through the whole concert. It felt so good.