Post 20. The Giving Tree

Happy birthday, Mom!

It’s my mom’s birthday, and I’ve been sitting here trying to figure out how to write something that comes close to what she means to me. I truly can’t. I promise you—she is that awesome. While I will almost certainly fail to capture the full picture, I’ll give it a shot:

If anyone wants to understand how truly kind someone can be, I’d ask them to spend just a few minutes with my mom. Have you ever read Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree? That is my mom.

She gives. Constantly. She gives her time, her attention, her energy, her sleep. She gives without ever making a big deal out of it. She gives to me, to everyone, to strangers she’ll never see again. And she doesn’t ask for anything back. She wouldn’t even know how.

In The Giving Tree, the tree gives its apples, its branches, its trunk—everything it has—just to support the boy as he grows and stumbles. That’s what my mom does.

Even when it kind of annoys me in the moment, she’ll go out of her way to thank someone. Like really thank them. Whether it’s someone holding a door or someone behind the counter, she always tries to bring the person to a smile. She writes thank-you notes too. On receipts. On sticky notes. Whatever she can find. And people keep them. When I moved into school this year, we saw the same guy who helped us the year before. And he pulled out the little note she gave him last time. He had it in the back of his phone.

She’s like this all the time. She remembers birthdays most people forget. She notices things nobody else does. She never misses the chance to make someone feel seen.

And as you can tell from the photo below, I’m still working on matching her level of excitement and appreciation for every day on earth. She’s beaming.

Hope this gives you a taste. I’ll keep working on how to fully capture how special she is. This definitely did not.

For now: Happy birthday, mom! I love you!