Be Nice to Your Mother

I know the title of this post sounds self-serving. It is. Sue me.

Here's what I think about as I edit the mother characters in book one: your mother made you out of stuff she just had on hand. No blueprint, no helpline, just whatever she could scrounge up: biology, instinct, the last of her patience, and probably a lot of coffee. Was she perfect? Nobody is. Was she good enough? You're here, reading this, so I'd say the evidence speaks for itself.

She grew you in her body. She wiped your nose. She did roughly ten thousand things you'll never know about because she didn't bother to mention them.

If your mother is still around, call her today. Not next week. Today. If she's not, then do something to honor her that you know she would have liked: go to church, volunteer at a retirement home, or eat an entire carrot cake by yourself (look, I didn't know her – you did).

You only get one mother. Be nice to her.