Mom,

I don't say this kind of thing right, I never have, so bear with me here.

You gave so much of yourself for so long that I started treating it like air, like it was just the weather, always there and not worth mentioning. The food was there. The clean clothes were there. The worrying was there, god, the worrying. Your tired face at the end of the day was there. And I was young and selfish and busy and angry, take your pick, I leaned on every one of those as an excuse at some point.

But I see it now, that's the whole reason I'm writing this down. I see the actual woman who was standing behind the word "mom." A woman who was scared a good deal of the time and didn't always know what she was doing and went and did it anyway, every single day, with nobody clapping. A woman who swallowed her own worry so I could have an ordinary afternoon.

I wish I could go back and be softer. Help more. Hug you longer instead of squirming out of it. Not roll my eyes the way I did. Not vanish into my own little life like yours was just going to sit there and wait for me to need it again.

Thank you for loving me when I was not an easy kid to love. I know I wasn't.

I carry you in the way I keep going when I'm worn all the way down. That part is you. That part is all you.