Happy Mother's Day!

You may be expecting something profound and heart-felt. I'm not sure I'm up to it.

I have the best mom in the world. Many people say that. I suspect it's true of anyone who does say that. I believe God puts each person in exactly the right family to teach them everything they're going to need to know. If that is true, then each part of that family is "the best" for every other part.

If you've read my blog for any length of time, you've figured out my mom is important to me. We are, without a doubt, enmeshed. That's a clinical term often described with a hand gesture. Take your outstretched fingers (jazz hands!) and fold them together so that the fingers of one hand are interlocked with the fingers of the other. That's enmeshment.

It's not necessarily a good thing. It is something that can happen when your spouse and father dies and there's only two hurting people left in the house. It certainly happened to us.

I didn't mind. I never planned to marry, even when dad was alive. I expected to live with my folks forever. Mom tells me Dad would not have allowed that, but I'm thinking I could have convinced him. I'm very persuasive.

What it did was turn a parent-child relationship into a friendship. I'd always been the "little adult." Mom says I was 15 going on 50. My step into adulthood was smaller than Neil Armstrong's step onto the moon.

As the years have gone by, our enmeshment has loosened a bit. She lives 20 minutes and a phone call away. She has a new, wonderful husband. She has her own interests and friends, and so do I.

It's cliche, but there are no words to describe how much I love and value her. Yes, she can annoy me faster than any human on the planet, but she can also comfort me just as quickly. I cannot imagine a world without my mom, and I don't try. I'll cross that bridge if and when I come to it.

Those who are close to their mothers will understand completely what I am writing. For those who are not, I am sorry. I hope God puts someone in your life to provide that kind of equal parts support and irritation. Everybody needs at least one friend like that.

I love you, mom. Thank you for my life.