I love this photo of my mom as a child.

It’s my mom’s birthday today.

She’s a private person. She’s so private that just me saying here that she’s a private person has probably embarrassed her beyond any embarrassment I have ever felt in my life. Because of this, I never talk about my mom on this blog, so you might get the impression that we don’t get along or that maybe my mom doesn’t play a part in my life at all.

That’s not the case.

This is the best photo I have ever taken of my mom. She let me take as many photos as I wanted while she played on the swing. We went to a camping site called Camelot back in August of 2005. I took lots of photos and she followed me around until we walked into a swarm of mosquitoes. She was bit about fifteen times and she let me put Benadryl cream on the red welts. Even though we were itchy it was a good memory.

She married this guy a few years ago.We all just call him Reed. I’m so glad she married him. I didn’t know how much I needed a daddy until the day he showed up at my house with his lawn mower in his pickup. Our lawn mower had broken and the company I had hired to take care of the lawn wasn’t able to come for another week. He mowed my lawn; wouldn’t even let me do it myself. I never had the kind of dad who would do something like that for me before.

Happy birthday, Mom!

I’m sorry I’ve embarrassed you so much, but I couldn’t let another birthday go by without the world knowing how important you are to me.