Thanks for the greatest gift a mother can give

Of all the things she's grateful to her mom for this Mother's Day, there's one that's special.

from the May 10, 2007 edition

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This Mother's Day, the list of things I have to thank my mother for is seemingly endless. She deserves a big thank you for answering my midnight phone calls, for not laughing at me when I insisted on crimping my hair for my school photo, and for assuring me that there are certainly – even if she didn't know any of them personally – German majors who make good livings.

And I'd be remiss not to thank her for always cooking my favorite meals when I return home, for consistently offering good advice – but letting me ask for it before she gives it – and for good-naturedly storing the mementos of my childhood in her basement despite knowing that I'll probably never make good on my promise to come and get them one day.

It's recognized the world over that there's really no way to properly and fully thank our mothers for the lifetime of love, support, and guidance they provide. And it's just as impossible to conceive of all the things for which they deserve to be thanked.

So this year I'm bypassing all the details – the birthday cake castle she lovingly constructed, the Halloween dinosaur costume pieced together on her sewing machine, the dance recitals she endured without complaint, graciously piling on compliments despite my two left feet – and I'm just going to concentrate on the one thing that she has given me that is the greatest gift of them all.

Thank you, Mom, for my three brothers, for the gift of siblings. Oh, I certainly know that there have been times when I have been anything but thankful for them – when I've pondered what it might be like to be an only child, when I've wondered just what I did to deserve to be the sister of three younger brothers. But trust me, even when I haven't shown it, I've always known that they, while not perfect, are the perfect gift.

Because of them, I was never without a childhood playmate. They were the constant cohorts in my attempts to build a bike track behind our house, Polos to my Marco, and fellow back-seat travelers on that six-week trip across the country. They shared my Christmas Eve anxiety, gave me the most heartfelt birthday cards, and regularly caused me to laugh so hard my stomach hurt.

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