Happy Birthday, Mom!

Mom and I at my high school graduation

“So rest your head upon me
I have strength to carry you”

This is an excerpt from a song called Lazarus, by Porcupine Tree, and it always makes me think of my mom.

When I was 11 years old, I came home to a locked front door and saw a note that said our house was going to be repossessed by the bank. That night, my mom looked at me and promised that she was going to make everything okay. For the next year I watched my Mom work 36 hours a week while taking 21 credit hours at McPherson College. My life was a mess at that point, I was being bullied constantly at school, and there was so much uncertainty in my life, but I held onto my Mom’s words and my Mom held our family together. My mom’s support was a constant in my life, through middle school, high school, through college, and when I first started my work in education. When I was going through student teaching and was in a stretch where I had 8 hours of sleep over the span of four days, I remember being surprised at my door by a delivery person who had a case of 12 Starbucks Doubleshots that he had delivered from my Mom (poor dude, he must have been confused by why I was almost crying at that point, lol). I thought about how my Mom graduated from her school of ed and kept thinking, “it’s going to be okay, and I can do this.” I ended up graduating and getting job in education, and Lazarus ended up being my Mom and I’s dance song at my wedding.

Now that Nat and I are expecting a son of our own in three weeks(!) I’ve been thinking of Lazarus and my Mom’s words a lot (my Mom’s going to be a grandma)! I can only hope that I can be a parent who inspires the same faith from my own children like my Mom has with me. Happy birthday, Mom.