"You're almost beautiful!"

It's funny this story has not been told me before recently. I think it was Christmas, I was at Mom and Dad's house, and I said something complimentary to Mom and Dad grinned on hi-beam and said "you're almost beautiful!" Mom laughed heartily and I asked to what they referred.

Apparently it was 40 or more years ago, and I was a very little girl. Mom was all dolled up for something, probably an awards banquet for the folks at Schilling Motors in Memphis, where Dad worked. I remember her in some stylish heels covered with glittery silver lamé. Quite posh and elegant. Mom was smokin' hot and always tastefully got up. [ I remember a little boy in my class saying "hubba, hubba" when she walked in one day. Seems like the little boys were very alert when she came in the room.]

Anyhoo, Mom proceeded to tell me she and Dad were going somewhere all those years ago and I saw her decked out in her finery and I gushed "Momma! You're almost beautiful!" She said it was her favourite compliment she's ever gotten.

She knew what I meant. She really was beautiful. And she still is.

Being a Mom is one of the toughest jobs going. To be a Mom is to be the constant in the lives of the people she loves, and to be the very hub of the wheel that keeps everyone in motion. To be a Mom is to be sought for comfort, when often those very same people don't think to ask if her heart is breaking, too. A good Mother is as vital as the stitching that holds the silk of a balloon together, gossamer-fine, almost disappearing into the fabric, and yet so essential to the proper function of that cloth and the key to the survival of the souls it carries aloft. Moms are easy to take for granted, but we are so very lucky to have them.

I'm very lucky to have mine, and I love her very much.

Your first October baby will always think you're almost beautiful, Mom.
Happy Birthday. I love you.