South Carolina summers are unbearably hot...humid... and down right miserable. A soft breeze is rare to say the very least. But, nevertheless, when the time to write comes, it can't simply wait- it must be carried out for fear of never being remembered again. And it's here amidst spiky grass and dead pine needles under the drilling rays of the summer sun that I think of the most beautiful thing a girl of any age can think of. Her mother.
However, it took me seventeen years to finally appreciate and recognize just how beautiful my own mother is. Actually, it was just last week while sitting in a crowded dorm lobby of a college nearby when I did. The room was musty from the amount of tears being shed from everyones eyes, including my own. Each girl had drawn their knees into their chest as if trying to create a safer place for their tears to fall rather than the floor. We sat, our dripping eyes cast upwards towards our fellow camper, our dear friend. Besides the sniffling of runny noses, only her voice could be heard as she spoke with words pouring straight from her heavy heart. Everyone was listening intensely to a story of a mother who never cared, a mother who never loved but rather a mother who neglected, ignored, and degraded. The speaker went on to say that she never knew how to make her mother proud, how to make her mother care about her, or how to make her mother love her. The room was completely silent when the story was through. Feeling as if my heart and stomach had been ripped our of my body, I realized then and there that I was incredibly blessed. I realized in that gut wrenching moment how utterly beautiful my mother is and always will be.
Don't get me wrong, my mother is a very physically beautiful woman, but the beauty I'm referring to is a beauty that can only shine from the life and heart of someone. It is because of my friend's heart breaking life story that not another day will go by when I'm not on my knees thanking God for blessing me with my mother. Because without my mother? I wouldn't even want to know where I would be, or better yet who I would be. It is because of my mother's endurance in believing in me through the years that I have come to believe in myself. It is because of all the things my mother does for me that I feel special and wanted. And it is because of the love my mom so graciously exudes everyday that I am left with a tangible example everyday of how God loves me, unconditionally.
I could go on, but Mom, if you're reading this I hope you see how much you mean to me. I hope you feel the sincerity of my words. But most importantly, I hope you feel beautiful because that's exactly what you are. And if you ever doubt that? Read this, I would be happy to remind you. I love you, Beautiful.
