Happy Mother’s Day 2010

Last weekend I enjoyed an annual girls getaway with my mother, sister, and niece in Victoria. It was a fantastic way to reconnect, explore, and also celebrate my mother’s birthday. We’ve been doing our girls getaway weekends for 8 years now and for 6 of those years we’ve stayed at the lovely Delta Ocean Pointe. Its location, views, kid-friendly staff, and facilities are the reason we return each year. It’s also my mother’s top choice.

I’ll be writing my Top Five for 2010: Victoria so I won’t go into too much detail about the places we visited and the sights we saw. However, I will pay tribute to my mother today, whom I’m sure was expecting a birthday post too but I hope this makes up for it…

Images of my brother, sister and I are the main feature of each family photo album that I come across. It’s next to impossible to find a photo of my mother with us. There are a few of her alone and if taken by any of the kids the images are from about waist-height and have plenty of blur. While this makes me slightly sad, and for the sake of this post I can’t really add in an old “Mom and Me” photo, it just shows how proud she was of us. My brother, sister and I were always front and centre. She was at our Science Fairs, packed our lunches (including notes wishing us a good day at school), and sent us off to summer camp with a secret stash of gummi worms in our backpacks.

Before I was old enough to go to school I was my mom’s shadow. We would hop the bus from Newton to Whalley, I’d ride shotgun in the shopping cart at Safeway, and we’d complete entire colouring books together (even though she stayed within the lines more often than I).

30 years later and not much has changed. We’ll ride the SkyTrain together, go out for lunch downtown, and complete cheeky Mad Libs from our hotel beds. She’s also just as protective of her babies now than she ever was… think mother bear protecting her cub — she’s feisty and you wouldn’t want to get in her (or her cub’s) way… ever.

My mom and her grandkids

When you’re little your mom is your world. Today, my mom has left her comfort zone on more than one occasion in order to now fit into my world. She was the first person to read my blog and I’m happy to say, she now runs her own WordPress site for her club. She’s on Facebook, Twitter, and always signs her text messages “Love, Momma”. My world has grown but truth be told, it was shaped by her. She taught me to write, taught me to try my best, and taught me that family will always be there for you.

Sometimes I think my mom is sad because I get to do things she’s always dreamed of such as living in Boston, visiting New York, and taking daily strolls Vancouver’s West End. However, I wouldn’t be able to do half the things I’ve done without her love and support. She may live vicariously through some of my adventures but I’ve never been to Germany, I’ve never met Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s relatives, I’ve never taken the train to Bath or stood at Stonehenge. I’ve never had three successful children or four sweetheart grandchildren. I’ve never sung anyone a lullaby.

My mom and her mom

My mother may look like a regular lady who does her crosswords on the SkyTrain and follows the ebb and flow of the daily commuter sea, but when you take the time to get to know her you’ll realize she’s one of the most caring, loyal, and clever people you’ll ever meet. That, and if you do spot her sometime, she’s probably the one sporting the Miss604 tote bag, button, or a clip of me in some newspaper. She is the biggest fan of all her children and it needs to be made known more often that we’re all pretty crazy about her too.

I’m blessed to have many loving and entirely awesome mothers in my life. My sister, my mom, my Oma, my Aunt Anita, and my amazing mother-in-law. Happy Mother’s Day, I love you all very much.