Ma’s Birthday Present.

Today is my mother’s birthday, as I call her in the traditional New England manner; Ma.
I am not going to go into great detail on all that she has done from me. That would require a long and very personal essay. Suffice it to say that I owe much of what I am to her.

She raised three kids single handed. I learned independence because of this, mainly by necessity. She worked very hard not only to keep a roof over our heads, but to also assure that she had a balance between our needs and her own personal development. In light of that I was often left to my own devices and had more freedom than many other kids. I took a lesson from that and now that I am a parent I try to walk the same line.

When I was younger, I was not always reasonable, but time has tempered that obstinate attitude and now I look back and think, oh what she must have thought of me, and I laugh at myself, something else I took from her.

Yes, I took so much away from those years, but the thing I am most grateful for is compassion. She was always very caring, not just towards us, but to all life in general. It is compassion that led me to many other places in my life; kindness, reason and patience just to name a few. So many parents teach their kids what to think and how to judge others based on an inherited belief system. I was not taught what to think or to judge, was not offered a belief system to follow, but was taught how to think and to temper my attitude with compassion.

Looking back on how I was raised I realize that as I get older I am understanding more and more of what she gave me in those most formative years of my life, and I am grateful.

Thank you, Ma. I love you. Happy Birthday.