I must write about what just happened, because it restores my faith in good and humanity, and my family.  By family, I’m referring to my long suffering mother.  The one who had the balls to raise a tomcat like me, and while I may call her Tigger on Crack, would take out her bones and hand them over if she thought they’d cure anything that ailed me.  She is after all, a Mother.

Christmas was worth the mess, but today, after all the fanfare had passed, I looked around rather glumly at the “gom”.  It’s a term my Mom has always used to describe the mess created by children.  A mixture of sticky and Oh My God.  Gom.  Sara and Kelly can GOM with the best of them.  Once again, company is a-comin’.  But it’s Lydia, my lifelong friend who would take one look at the gom, open a bottle of wine, and tell me to worry about it another day.  She may send only Crane stationery, but that girl would cut off her foot before she’d judge my mess.  There’s some deep love between the two of us.

As I scraped something of an unusual color and texture off a kitchen chair, in through my garage door strode my red-headed Mom.  She drove 2.5 hours to help me clean.  She is leaving on vacation TOMORROW morning.  2.5 hours she drove to scrub my bathrooms, pick up toys, and start the enormous piles of Sara & Kelly laundry (both on their 3rd outfits today).  Because I needed the help.  Because she’s my Mother.  I cried all over her as she left.  In that moment, I saw her Mother in her eyes.

Sometimes I feel like I’m cleaning with a snow shovel, just piling a mess from one room into another.  But there are those rare days when even the TV is missing its signature tiny girl handprints.  The house even smells clean.  I look around, and things are where they should be.  Today has turned itself around.  Today is a very good day.

Thank you Mom.  I love you.