On Friday, a package came for me in the mail. It took me by surprise since I didn’t remember ordering anything. After some investigation I found the name of my oldest daughter in the place of the sender.

On my gosh! A Mother’s day present. I opened the package and found an adorable figurine of a woman holding flowers in front of her face.

My Emotional Journey

I placed my gift on the end table next to me so I can gaze upon it throughout the day. Suddenly, a wealth of emotions hit me. This wasn’t my first Mother’s Day. After all, my oldest is nineteen. It wasn’t even my first Mother’s Day without my oldest child. She’d lived the last couple of years with my mother. So what was it?

My daughter’s first Mother’s Day away from parental supervision — my first Mother’s Day with a child living as an adult.

The situation put new meaning on her gift.

Every year, I receive Mother’s Day gifts from my husband, children, and sometimes even my mom and dad. But this present was different. This wasn’t a gift my husband purchased and slapped everyone’s name on it. This wasn’t a gift my child purchased with money they’d received from other family members for whatever reason. This was a gift my daughter purchased with money she earned while living outside our home and as an adult. Away from home, where no one was watching or telling her what to do, she’d thought of me as Mother’s Day approached.

I wondered if this was how my mother felt the first Mother’s Day I left home. Because this was the most special gift I’d received from my daughter.

Her Mother

I guess the adjective which best described my daughter growing up was unpredictable, which made our relationship a bit unbalanced at times. In so many ways, raising my daughter was easy. She caused me little stress. She listened well, and was respectful most of the time. But then there was school.

Her education was a huge concern. In my mind, her entire future rested on finishing high school. It was touch and go for a while. I’d even looked into alternative options — adult high school, GED — anything for her to obtain that piece of paper to open the world to her.

With the guidance of my mother, my daughter made it through high school, and on time. 🙂 I watched her walk across the graduation stage with a hope of a future. Later, I was with my daughter — camouflaged in Army fatigues — on the family day before she graduated from basic training.
Earlier today, I found this video on Yahoo. I watched the women raise their children, saw the emotions on their faces.

I know how these women feel. I watched my daughter stumble and fall then get back up and try again. She found the motivation, and she succeed. In my eyes, she is a gold medalist. She is an olympic champion. I am beyond proud to tell the world my daughter is a high school graduate, a solider in the US Army.

If you haven’t taken advantage of the Mother’s Day sale I’m having with my book, don’t miss out. 🙂 Sale ends on Tuesday.