Happy Mother's Day

I was watching Grey’s Anatomy week before last. It was the episode where Izzy’s mom comes to visit her because she is in the hospital with Stage 4 metastatic melanoma. Evidently, their relationship is strained because even though she is facing death, Izzy would rather her mom go home than stay by her side. She made the statement “we do better loving each other from a distance.”

I know this is a non-reality TV show…but that statement made me stop and think about how true that is about a lot of mother/daughter relationships…and how it couldn’t be farther from the truth about the relationship between my mom and me.


This is the distance between my mom and me…103 steps to be exact from my backdoor to hers. When I tell people I live next door to my parents, some people laugh, some apologize. And you know what? I give thanks. I’m thankful that when I need to borrow a cup of sugar, or eggs, or laundry detergent… I just walk across the yard and I don’t even have to knock. I’m thankful that when I need or just want to talk, I can be there in a couple of minutes. I’m thankful that my kids are getting to grow up really “knowing” their grandparents. How many people miss that blessing?

The speed at which life moves is no stranger to my thoughts. I know that one day if the Lord doesn’t return before then, I will have to say goodbye to my mother just like she said goodbye to hers this past November. Until then, I will enjoy every 15 minute pop-in visit, every evening we somehow end up just hanging in the backyard, every time she watches me walk home when it’s dark out…and waves to me before I round the corner out of sight, and I will treasure every Mother’s Day I can walk 103 steps to kiss my mom and tell her I love her.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.