Behind all your stories is always your mother’s story. Because hers is where yours begin. – Mitch Albom, For One More Day

Mothers are generally not only mothers. Mothers are always also daughters and sisters and wives and grandmothers and stepmothers and friends and employees and church members and neighbors and many other things. We all know this intellectually. But at the end of the day, they are simply our mom.

My mother passed away in 1995. I think of her almost every day and miss her like she left for heaven yesterday.

But I am blessed to have had a wonderful stepmother….

Celebrating Shirley’s birthday on her 80th birthday.

….and to have had a loving mother-in-law who joined my mom in heaven recently…..

Wilma and her great grandson Joseph.

All of my mothers have been all of the things I mentioned above. But I honor them today because they have been my mother. And that was and is no easy task.

Jen, Mom, and me circa 1990.

Dad and Mom with many of their grandkids at their home in Dillon, circa 1982.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the mother’s in my life, and to all of my friends and family members who are mothers. It’s the most important job we have.