Today's my 27th birthday and my mom would be 56 today. Today's the day I miss her the most, although I tend to miss her any time something ridiculous happens or my boss does something fucking insane (which is pretty much all the time) and I want to tell her about it and hear her reaction. When I was having issues with our previous office manager, I could hear her in my head telling me to not be as visible expressing my exasperation and I did what I would've done even if she was here: carried on acting as I had been all along. But aside from that I miss the advice she would give me.
As Dad drove me back to the apartment Monday night he repeated a story he loves to tell about Mom. Her friend was trying to decide whether she should go back to work after being a stay-at-home mom for a while and asked my mom her advice on what to do. When Mom told Grandma about this, Grandma scoffed "Well you never like it when I give you advice!" To which Mom replied, "Yeah but she actually ASKED for my advice." People trusted her opinion and knew that she thought things out before speaking or acting and her advice would rarely lead you astray. And that more than anything is the part of her that I try to emulate. I'm not always successful, but I hope that by consciously making an effort I'm becoming more like her.
As Grandma likes to remind me, she got married when she was 27. I think I should point out that I technically have 365 days to accomplish that feat. Perhaps tonight at dinner I'll meet the man of my dreams eh? That'll shut her up ;)
*By craziness of course I mean sitting on Dad's couch in NJ, knitting and watching movies for three days straight. Also that cake at the top shows what happens when you put over a hundred candles on a ice cream birthday cake.
As Dad drove me back to the apartment Monday night he repeated a story he loves to tell about Mom. Her friend was trying to decide whether she should go back to work after being a stay-at-home mom for a while and asked my mom her advice on what to do. When Mom told Grandma about this, Grandma scoffed "Well you never like it when I give you advice!" To which Mom replied, "Yeah but she actually ASKED for my advice." People trusted her opinion and knew that she thought things out before speaking or acting and her advice would rarely lead you astray. And that more than anything is the part of her that I try to emulate. I'm not always successful, but I hope that by consciously making an effort I'm becoming more like her.
As Grandma likes to remind me, she got married when she was 27. I think I should point out that I technically have 365 days to accomplish that feat. Perhaps tonight at dinner I'll meet the man of my dreams eh? That'll shut her up ;)
*By craziness of course I mean sitting on Dad's couch in NJ, knitting and watching movies for three days straight. Also that cake at the top shows what happens when you put over a hundred candles on a ice cream birthday cake.
