Dear Mom,

No, you didn’t do it perfectly. You lost your temper when you should have given yourself a timeout. You delivered scoldings when you should have offered grace. You forgot to send the lunch money, got the wrong size shoes, counted Ketchup as a vegetable, and gave in too early.

But mamas, you are always, always more than the sum of your imperfection. Look at you!

Look how you let your heart go walking around outside of your body, even when you knew they’d break it.

You carried the laundry baskets, the feverish child, the grocery sacks, the keys to souls.

You stuck to your guns, even when it was unpopular.

You never stopped hoping.

You’ve rubbed a million tiny circles into little backs, and held a thousand cold washcloths to hot foreheads.

You were on your feet cheering, and on your knees praying.

You let her keep the change, but you taught her the value of a dollar.

You didn’t know the strength you had inside of you, until your kid needed it. This is why mothers have been known to lift cars up off of their children, and why they will stand between their kids and any conceivable evil. You are Mother Bear and Mama Heart.

You slept next to her when she didn’t get invited.

You bought the Hello Kitty bandaids.

You didn’t rescue her from mistakes because you knew there was something to be learned from them.

You read the book for the 15th time in a row, and always used the funny voices.

You knew when to let him “do it myself” and when not to.

You put those plastic thingies in the light sockets.

You made him at least TRY the peas, and knew when he were secretly hiding them under his napkin.

You let him wear the cape and rain-boots to church. But you were his favorite superhero.

You let them make forts out of the furniture, and you jumped from rug to rug with them, because of the sharks.

You bought the bubble-gum flavored ibuprofen.

You taped the drawings on the refrigerator, and said it was her best one ever.

You loved. You stayed. You never gave up. 

Jill Churchill was right when she said it like this: “There’s no way to be a perfect mother but a million ways to be a good one.”

You are one of the good ones.