Lessons Learned

Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday Dear Mooom!
Happy Birthday to you!

Mom, I love you with all of my being. Without you, I could never have existed and blossomed into the young woman I am today. Two times this week I have seen the quote by Thomas Edison about results.

"Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work."

:) When I saw it the first time, I thought it was insightful. When I saw it a second time, I realized someone, you or God, was trying to teach me something. (It's funny how things have to come at me a few times before I realize they were a lesson for me. ;) ) Anyway, I had been thinking about you, Mom, and I was worried that you felt you didn't get to teach me enough, that I didn't learn enough life lessons from you. That is when the lesson of this quote hit me. Very rarely did you place a controlling hand in my life and tell me I had to do something or absolutely could not do something, unless of course it was cleaning my room. ;) Almost always, you let me learn things on my own, subtly putting your input where you felt I needed it, telling me "I told you so," when I needed that. In learning my own lessons, you allowed me to become my own person. Also, in learning my own lessons, you were teaching me all the ways not to go about certain situations. Because you raised me in such a way that I learned many of my own lessons, knowing you were there to catch me if and when I fell, I can now value all the lessons you inadvertently taught me. Now, after typing this to you, I am realizing, you probably knew what you were doing all along. :) If you didn't, you kept faith that it would all work out in the end, as it has. I am just as crazy as you were, and I hope to have just as big a heart as you did. :) I love you, Mom, and I hope you are having a party in Heaven, celebrating the day God brought you into the world. I know He is as proud of you as I am.