Dear Mom,

Happy Mother’s Day! I was listening to a podcast that talked about Anna Jarvis, the founder/creator of Mother’s Day. It made me think of you. First off, I think about you nearly every day. Sometimes it’s only for a brief second, like when I see an elephant or piece of weird art that you’d enjoy. Other times I find myself wondering what life would be like if you hand’t died 11 years ago.

Sometimes I wonder what you know about my life. My understanding (theologically, which never impressed you, nor should it), is that you are with Jesus in paradise. It doesn’t seem like paradise to know that your loved ones have bad days, like I’ve had for, oh, the past few years or so. No, it’s not been easy. But God is gracious and merciful.

I think you’d be pretty happy with how it all turned out. Redemption, for sure. The same kind of redemption I saw in your life when you said yes to Jesus back in the early 90’s. Things are much better now, and I bet you’d get a kick out of Brittany. You’d love her no-nonsense attitude, sunshine, and determination. You’d be impressed by how well she loves my kids, as if they’re her own. You’d be glad to see how happy I am. Who knows — maybe you already know this. Then you must also know that I picked my nose while I was driving yesterday. And you know where I put it. And I’m sorry.

Anyway, like I said earlier, I heard this podcast that referred to a woman named Anna Jarvis. She created the whole Mother’s Day campaign and ended up hating what it turned into. She lived long enough to see what it did for the floral and greeting card industry. She didn’t like the commercialization of it all, referring to the greeting card as “a poor excuse for the letter you were too lazy to write.” Ouch. I shared that at church today and couldn’t help but notice that I may have inadvertently rained on some parades. It got awkward. But you would’ve laughed and laid the thick guilt on me and Paco, with a smile and that laugh, telling us we should produce 10 pages each. I would’ve sarcastically submitted the screenplay from RoadHouse, and you would’ve set it up on the table and we’d laugh about it, strange as we were.

So, here’s my letter. It’s going really well. I’ve said what I wanted to say. Big hugs. Miss you. Love you.

And thank you.