Happy Birthday, Momma!

Taylor and Momma making funny faces last July... in Orange Beach, AL

(Given the green shirt and pop eyes... We call this her Froggy face!)

Momma with Brittany ....Also in Orange Beach, AL.
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She's a good sport... The original Chef, chief cook and bottle washer, custodian of the family records, accountant and financial wizard, chauffer or cab driver (whichever is required), laundress, housekeeper, teacher, spiritual advisor, counselor, first-aid provider, referee, negotiator, guardian, boy repellant, lover, wife, mother, aunt, sister, daughter, friend, volunteer, and Child of God. (My father actually wrote this on a loan application once to describe the various duties of a SAHM... :O)))

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When my father retired from his more than three decades of service to the FAA, his co-workers honored not only my father, but also my mother with a rocking chair for their golden years... Why? Well, because my mother was literally "the wind beneath my father's wings."

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She assisted him in a home-building project that took the better part of my childhood and is still not quite complete. She fell eleven years ago and suffered an injury that would have permanently crippled a lesser woman... But, not my momma... She is a trooper and then some. She spends every Saturday with her sisters, makes special trips to see her grandchildren and cried as she expressed unconditional support for my Brittany who moves out on her own in AUGUST. OH MY! I drove her and my aunts to TJ Maxx one afternoon and my momma bought me everything I looked at with an admiring eye just because she wanted to say, "I Love You." All of this and she kept up the Laundry, took care of three children, hauled around any number of strange men who were my dad's hired hands. Said, "Ted, you're going to kill yourself doing that..." As my father did some herculean task while building the house - very nearly by himself a million times over in the six years it took for us to move in.

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I gave her flowers for her birthday last night... And, she showed up tonight, for dinner at Red Lobster, with her flowers in tow! When I cleaned her house at Christmas she refused to take a seat and enjoy the luxury of being served! She had to join right in saying, "I can do this myself... It just takes me longer."

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I responded, "I'm not doing this because I think you can't... I'm doing this because I think you shouldn't!"

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To which she said, "Okay." And sat down playing Christmas music and visiting with me while I worked. She can cook for an army of many and it is the tastiest comfort food around. Everything I learned about being a mom I owe to her. Everything I have ever known about God started with songs she sang to me as a child. She reads her Bible everyday and has read it through many times over. The other day she told me, "I was reading James the other day. You should read James... That's it. It's all in there. Just read it."

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OKAY, MOMMA! I think when I finish reading John I'm going to read James... Why? Because Momma said so. :o)

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She was with me when my babies came into this world and helped me take care of them most of their young lives. She wept for her own loss when Justin died, but cried harder when she considered mine. We have laughed together, cried together, gone to "war" together, prayed together, hoped together, shared life together... She is my momma and I love her so much. Happy Birthday Momma from your little girl.
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She is 64 years young today... She loves. She laughs. She lives. She shines. She smiles. She hopes. She dreams. She graces. She gives. She goes. She supports. She encourages. She exhorts. She never gives up. She prays. She blesses us all.

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Her children rise up

and call her blessed

(happy, fortunate,

and to be envied);

and her husband boasts

of and praises her,

[saying], many daughters

have done virtuously,

nobly, and well

[with the strength

of character

that is steadfast in goodness],

but you excel them all.

Charm and grace are deceptive,

and beauty is vain

[because it is not lasting],

but a woman who reverently

and worshipfully fears the Lord,

she shall be praised!

Give her of the fruit of her hands,

and let her own works praise her

in the gates [of the city]!
Proverbs 31:28-31 (AMP)