It was mid-August, 1986, and you were 8 months pregnant with our first child. The parking lot outside our apartment window shimmered in the heat, with no trace of breeze to cool the sun’s blaze. You kept asking me if you could remove your belly and place it in the fridge, “just for a little while”. I could never quite tell if you were joking. On your best days you were irritable, most days you were cranky, and on your worst days (dare I say it?) you were a flat out bitch. And everyday you were more wonderful then the last.

I had no job, and worried that we would not survive financially. I would steal glances at you as you sat in your chair, the fan, set to “hurricane” blowing your hair back out of your face and your hands cradled protectively around the precious cargo in your womb. It was at those times that I knew to my very bones that all would be fine, for what love had created, no circumstance in the world could ever harm. Now, 21 years later, I have yet to be proved wrong. We now have four wonderful children, proof that love can only grow to exceed itself.

Throughout the years you have shown yourself, time and time again, to be an exceptional mother, always prepared to put your children’s needs before your own. In many families, this motherly trait turns the woman into a virtual house slave, but because you only wanted what was best for your children, you were able to teach them a better way. Your care and attention taught them to be selfless without the need to be self-sacrificial.

You taught our sons to be attentive to women, without reducing them to mere “booty calls”. In this you have made them stronger than their peers, and men that we can be proud of. You taught our daughters to be strong within themselves without sacrificing their femininity. In this you made them women who could be womanly, without diminishing them in any way. You have made them role models for their peers, and daughters that we can take joy in.

In you I could not have chosen a better partner in life, nor a better parent for our children. You have been the mother that most men want for their families, and few are fortunate enough to find. I want to thank you for all that you have given us, your family, the timeless treasures that your participation in our lives has been. I want to shower you with gifts and praise from sunup to sundown, in an attempt to express my love and gratitude for who you are, but I can’t, for there is no gift spectacular enough and no word strong enough to express my love and gratitude, save one: Mother. All that is, and all that will ever be is contained in that word, and yet it is still too small to contain the blessing that you have been to us.

So forgive me if I content myself with this wholly inadequate sentiment: Happy Mother’s Day, Dawne.

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