Morning Mom

In the mornings is when I miss my mom the most. She wouldn't walk in, she would bound in. I am not a morning person, but she definitely is.  Our paths would cross early in the morning before she left for work and I for school.  She would dance and sing and talk to me while I tried to wipe the sleep from my brain.  My favorite was the morning of my birthdays.  She would pounce on me and sing a morning birthday song.  One that was all her own.  It was like waking up to the cutest puppy licking your cheek.  It was the greatest.  I would play like I wanted to sleep more and her laughter and her smiles and her tickles would infect me, would spread through me and would shine inside me for the rest of the day.  With a quick hop-skip-boop she would be out of my room and on to her next beat.  I would meet her again in the kitchen and this time she would offer me stillness.  A perfect hug.  The hug that reminded me, that whispers kindly in my ear "you are never alone, you are loved, and even when there's something in your heart that you aren't quite ready to talk about, I'm here whenever you need me."

So I sit here in an empty kitchen with a cup of tea and that stillness she gave me, is here inside me.  (The hop-skip-boop is inside me too, it just comes out later in the day)

I wonder how to pass it on to my own kids, and I wonder if they, like me, won't fully appreciate ALL of it till they are 33.