Its What They Don't Tell You: The 6 Year Mark

After losing my Mom 6 years ago this Saturday my life changed forever and for some reason it really hit me today. It will be the 6 year mark.

Time heals everything. At least that's what they say and to a point that may be true. But I can't help but think how much has changed in the past 6 years, how much I want to tell her, how much I want her to see, and what I would give to have one more girls night with my idol, the woman who has made me into what I am today.

On the flip side, I look back and see how far I've come in those 6 years. How much losing her has pushed me to be the person I am today. Instead of sitting and thinking how I feel about losing her today I really tried to feel blessed. Blessed that I was lucky enough to have 18 years with a woman who was everything and more a mother should be. She was more than a mother, she was mentor and an idol. I have never met anyone who has been so unwaveringly proud of me in life as she was and her pride in me pushed me to elevate not only my expectations in myself, but forever changed my minds eye of how I see the world (my anything is possible with hard work mentality I inherited from her). Nor have I ever met a woman who could light up a room with just a smile. (Just watching people how people watched her was something in itself).

One of the best keepssakes I have from my mom is an article written about her after she spoke at UW Hospitals'Jewel of an Evening' event that brought light to gynocological cancer. Here it is.

For Wendy Peters, surviving and thriving with cervical cancer involved setting goals for herself, like moving her daughter into college at UW-La Crosse. In the process, arguing with her daughter about "totally silly" things made her feel normal amid all the turmoil happening to her body, Peters said.

"We sweated and we fought, but we moved her into college and we did OK," said Peters. "It's the everyday, simple things that just make you happy."

It's true though isn't it? It's the simple, little things that just make us happy. I have learned the value in everyday from my mother and that life is really too short to be anything but happy. If you don't like something change it, if you want something work for it. I am eternally grateful to my angel of a mother and everyday in the back of mind, in my goals, in my work, in my dreams, in my relationships and more I work to live up to be a person she would be proud of, but the funny thing is she always used to tell me as long as I'm happy she would be proud of me.

She may not be with me in a physical sense, but I am reminded in my little quirks that make me stop and think "god that was something mom would say" that she will always be with me ( and those are the moments when I get the biggest smile ... A smile that I am proud to say comes straight from her).