Reasons I Love My Mother

Reason #340:

I loved the relationship that my mom had with my sister, Janelle.

Janelle was a handful growing up and was constantly in trouble for things like hiding her report cards to delay my parents seeing her terrible grades. This made no sense because we went to the same school, and my report card was always right on time. I got pretty insufferably good grades and loved to present my report card aloud the moment it came, explaining away how my A+ should actually have been an A++ because I had a 103% in the class. I was just the worst.

Janelle was always a sweet girl and really excelled at things like soccer, but she was definitely a handful for my parents. So I really loved watching the relationship between my mom and sister improve and change as Janelle got older and more mature. Janelle was just wonderful when my mom was sick; she stepped up and was a huge part of taking care of my mom, driving her to chemo appointments, making sure she took her pills, and rubbing her back where it was sore from tumors for hours at a time.

Before I moved home full-time, she was the oldest child there, and I saw a real change in her. I had always viewed her as this little kid - usually in trouble, usually just someone I bickered with - so it was really something to watch her change into this whole new adult person. I hope this doesn’t sound condescending, because I don’t mean it to be; I just always looked at her as a little sister. She was a wonderful calming presence while my mom was ill, and I know she learned this from my mom herself.

All three of us kids are really different, but how well I think we’ve all turned out is a real testament to my mom; she gave us an amazing model of an adult that we would want to eventually turn into one day.

To this day, I like looking at Janelle and seeing my mom.