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So, my mom works her butt off in our vegetable garden. She’s a busy little bee. There’s babysitting the flowers, canning jam, mowing the lawn––you know, all those things mothers do.

Mother’s Day was a few weeks ago, but I believe my column then centered around the fact that I somehow got stranded at a haunted cabin in the mountains (we won’t get into that story again). 

Anyway, it’s that time of year that my mom starts busying herself with the veggie garden. Meanwhile, I stay outside in the heat a bit too long, feeling dramatically faint, and end up needing to go inside. All that to say, doesn’t every kid think their mom is an angel/hero at some point? Maybe not every kid, but I certainly did.

Picture it: little baby M.M. sitting in her stroller in the mall. I was no older than 3 years old. I think at that point in my short life, my mom and dad were the sole people I ever spoke two words to.

So there we were in the mall, and my mom was chatting away with two other ladies. Somehow, amid their conversation, I’d worked my foot into the footrest on the stroller and cut myself. I don’t remember seeing blood, so I probably got all worked up over a little bit of peeled-up skin. But nonetheless, I cried out to my mom and in an instant, right before my eyes, this magical woman pulled out a Band-Aid from her purse.

Oh, the very healing thing I needed to patch up my foot, and Mom––the human I suddenly assumed was some angel looking after me––had provided this bandage from out of nowhere.

I was stunned at the magic of it all. How had she known I would need it? How had she placed it on my foot and suddenly healed it? 

I think they call it “a mother’s touch.”

Now, I think she has a “grandma’s touch,” which bids well for me––daughter still living at home.

Flash forward to the present day: All I have to do is call her on my way home from the coffee shop and say, “Can you make me dinner?”

Sometimes, she even calls ME and says, “It’s five o’clock. I know you’re getting hungry. Let me make you some pasta.”

Ah, she still knows what I need when I need it. Not just when I was a kid. But now, and for the rest of my life.

Happy late Mother’s Day to all the mommies out there!