I have many incomplete posts about my Mother. Thus far I have been unable to find words that are worthy of her. I doubt I ever will. I'll try again and hope that at least I can paint a picture that would not embarrass her in its inadequacy.

My Mother was beautiful, inside and out, smart as a whip and talented on accordion. That is how she met my Pop when he was in the Navy during World War II, when she was a USO Accordionist. Fast forward several decades....

She had already had a complete family – two girls and two boys – perfect really, but then she was pregnant with me. She thought she was menopausal when I was conceived and she was not Catholic so I've no idea why she went through with having me but she did.

No one was happy about my birth. I don't want to beat a dead horse if you have read anything I have written before. I was not planned, not wanted, resented...yada yada yada. Except by Mum.

When I was old enough to vocalize, “Why did you have me?” She said, “You were my gift to myself.” She explained every other child was planned, expected, wanted, mapped out but I was her surprise. I was the child she had by choice, not obligation. She could raise me without distraction. I was hers.

I don't remember a period where I did not know she had more grace and intelligence in her left earlobe than any other mother had in their entire frame. She helped so many with no appearance of assisting. She kept peace in our family. She was a rock to disabled Veterans and the marginalized alike. She never judged. Everyone deserved and received her love even if they were at odds with her. She never held grudges. She just wanted to do what ever she could to make people happy they were alive.

Grace. That should have been her name but instead it was May. May as in Spring. May as in birth, beginnings, emerald as new cut grass. May, fresh as daffodils or the first harvest to feed the hungry, her heart as pacific as oceans.

I've never met any to compare with her. And I know it is not just the years that separate us on this terrestrial plain that make me think this. When she left me she confessed that she felt guilt for leaving me motherless so young. I said to her, “I would rather have YOU for the years I've had you than another Mother for a life time.” I meant it then and I still mean it now.

That young orphan had no idea how hard life could be. She did not know she would be homeless and literally living on the street. She did not know there would be times where she would be asked to trade her integrity for survival and when she would not make the trade, she would, at one point, wish she was dead. She could not know then how the hole in her heart would feel after spending as many Mothers' Days without her Mother as with her but she had to know she would survive it because she is the daughter of May. Brilliant, beautiful, intellectual, kind, self sacrificing, funny, hard working, joyful, thankful, strong, patient May.

If I am anything, it is because I am the daughter of the most incredible person I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. If I won a Nobel Prize or Pulitzer it would still pale to being the daughter of May. I have friends who mourn the loss of their parents at seventy, eighty or ninety and I feel sad for them, adrift with their beginning ended, but not as sad as I feel for them, never having had my Mother as theirs.

I miss you, Mum. I love you. And I still would never trade a day with you for the comfort of having another mother for my lifetime.