I would like to share a sto­ry on my mother’s birthday.

When I was a young, inse­cure and freck­led-face child, I would nego­ti­ate with God when my requests were big or seemed impos­si­ble.  For exam­ple, “If you give me X, I’ll give you Y in return”. One of my prof­fered deals in my night­ly litany was, “Make me beau­ti­ful like my moth­er and I promise to be virtuous.”

As you can see, God lis­tened. I grew to look more and more like my mom as I grew old­er. And every time some­one remind­ed me of the resem­blance, I was remind­ed of the promise I made in return. How­ev­er what I didn’t real­ize until I was an adult is that mom’s spir­it, unselfish­ness, and virtues were what made her so beau­ti­ful to oth­ers and me. (Hah! Pret­ty ironic!)

Hap­py birth­day Mom­cha! I love you and hope that I real­ly grow up to be as beau­ti­ful as you!

My old­er sis­ter orga­nized a game for her birth­day par­ty this year. The fam­i­ly split into teams and reen­act­ed old pho­tos of my mom. Here are just a few of them! 

This was fun and makes for a great birth­day game! 🙂