Rant #917: Today's Your Birthday

Today is my mother's birthday.

She is 82 years young today.

I have written about her in the past, and since today is her day, I will write about her again, so you get to know her even better than you do if you have read my posts over the past few years.

My mother is our family's Rock of Gibraltar. I really do not know where we would be if it wasn't for her.

As the matriarch of our little family--my family with two kids, and my sister's family, with three--she is the glue that holds us together, making her the strongest one of all of us.

You wouldn't think this way if you looked at her. She is probably the thinnest person I have ever seen, and my sister and I do not take after her, that's for sure.

She is slight looking, but not slight at all.

She is bright, effervescent, and seemingly hasn't lost a step over the past several decades. Of course, like all of us, she has, but she moves so fast that you don't see it.

She is the person that all of us go to when we have a problem. Sometimes she can solve the problem, sometimes not, but she is at least a sounding board for what we have to say.

And when she calls me by my real name, Lawrence, to this day I know I am in lots of trouble.

But she has always been there for my sister and myself, and for my kids and my sister's kids, and for my wife and my sister's husband.

My mother grew up in Brooklyn, and she has a tough veneer that she probably got from living there in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. 

But now, having settled down to life on Long Island, she is the typical suburban grandmother, but she has jets on her heels. I don't think too many people could keep up with her 40 years ago, and I know that not too many people can keep up with her now.

So here's to my mom. I am very lucky to have her.

Happy birthday, mom. Here's to another 82 years of forward motion.

And of everyone I know, you are the person who could actually do it.