What Would Connie Do?

Every year, Americans spend $13.8 billion on Mother’s Day cards, flowers and dinners—an amount that is at once exorbitant and wholly inadequate as acknowledgment for the endless gifts most of us received from our mothers.

On Mother’s Day 1986, I was a mother’s daughter—pregnant and sharing with my mother hopes and dreams for my first child. A year later, I was a daughter’s mother—selecting stories for my child that I would share about the grandmother she would never know.

My mother Connie, dying of cancer, feared she would be too unhealthy to hold my baby. As it turned out, Caileigh was the one unexpectedly and critically ill at birth. For two months, as Caileigh battled first for her life and then for her health, my mother rallied, sitting by my side in the hospital, running my errands, praying for Caileigh and organizing others to pray for her as well. As Caileigh’s prospects and strength grew, my mother’s faded. Weeks after my baby finally came home and my mother got to hold her just once in her own home, my mother slipped away. Her final gift to us was her precious remaining time, energy, companionship and faith.

I’ve missed having my mother here to share her advice, guidance and memories with me as I’ve raised my children. But most of the time when I need advice large or small, I realize I actually know exactly what she would say. In fact, I joke about having a bumper sticker made: What would Connie do?

She taught me the practical things no one had thought to teach her—what to spend on a wedding gift, always send thank you notes, forks on the left and knives and spoons on the right. More importantly, she taught, through both words and actions, the importance of having a moral compass. She thought about right and wrong and about what she believed—and she lived by those beliefs. I have not reached all the same conclusions she did about right and wrong—but I have developed a belief system that I try to live by. And I like to believe that my children, who will reach their own different-yet-again conclusions, have learned that lesson too.

She taught me that parenthood is a responsibility to be taken very seriously. But just as importantly, she taught me that it is a joy to be fully appreciated. My wonderful memories of times with my mother include shopping for shoes we didn’t need, laughing until we cried over who-knows-what, and her beating me at tennis and shamelessly gloating. I count those memories among her priceless gifts to me.

This Mother’s Day, Caileigh is 22 and an adult now, one who is healthy, beautiful and smart. One who is grounded with her own moral compass, and one who enjoys playing tennis, shopping and laughing over who-knows-what with her mother. My own mother has been gone for a long time, but the gifts she gave me are lasting. For that, I am thankful this Mother's Day.