A list of things that I love about my mom.



I'm stealing this idea from the great Yarn Harlot' s sweet entry about her husband. Today is my mother's birthday and I want to shout out all the things that make her awesome.



The laugh explosions she has when my brother imitates her.

When she gets bored on a banal afternoon, she makes my dad wrestle with her.

For having the chops to leave Germany and follow my dad to South Africa in 1975, learn english, and work in a Cape Town hospital.

For the way she ran to the gate to greet me when I got off the plane after my study abroad year in Germany in 2000.

For always wearing classy perfume, and erring on the side of too-much.

For the way she eats all the chocolate when she has a craving, and then shrugs her shoulders in bemused resignation.

For sort of pretending not to notice that every 50-ish man in our German hometown is secretly in love with her, and when you tell her, going, "Ja...klar."

For doing the hokey pokey at my brother's wedding.

You could eat off any surface in our house, and she can spot dust from 3 miles away.

For the 10 million things she has done for me, knowing that I would never notice or take the time to thank her.

The way she would rather stop to organize her purse and be late, than to be on time with everything not as it should be.

For the picture that I found of her in South Africa, 1975, celebrating Christmas with the black nurses in the "coloured" ward.

The way she always made sure there was enough sandwiches, sodas, bananas, and hardboiled eggs packed for every roadtrip.

For the ridiculous Christmas ornaments she made in an attempt at arts and crafts forced upon her by others, and the laugh we get out of them every year.

The way she doesn't dress her age, but doesn't try to look "younger".

For being unapologetic and sincere with everyone, even when the entire room holds an opposing opinion.

The fact that I feel nothing but pride when people tell me I look like her.

My Mom's hands are the only thing that reveal her age. They're wrinkled and worn from a million washings and 53 years of hard work, but they are always, always soft, and nowhere calloused.

For spending 40 minutes every morning making my hair poofy when I was in Junior High.

We're not Jewish, but when food products like pickles come in Kosher form, she buys the kosher "just in case."

For reading to us every night when I was a kid. For giving us juice instead of soda, and making us eat our vegetables.

When I get off the phone with her, I can hear her sighing, "Ach, uns're Lisa" to my dad as she hangs up the receiver.

For still laughing about the same 3 jokes years and years after she's first heard them.

For sporadically raising her hands up and saying, "Thank you, Lord!"

For taking shit from rude doctors, getting all kinds of body fluids spilled on her, and watching patients die, daily, and going back to work the next day.

For bringing me to faith, not just by telling me the story, but by living it.

Happy Birthday, Mami. :)

Posted: Thu - November 4, 2004 at 01:16 PM        

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