For my best friend, 

you are one of the most loving people to ever traverse the Earth. 

Your smile always lights up the room, and you glow with your love for all creatures—except for snakes and mice. 

Easily amongst the world’s hardest workers, you put so much effort and love into your work. You have—in my opinion—one of the hardest jobs on the planet: teaching first graders. Many days, you come home drained of energy and have to run your four children all over town to satisfy their ever-growing interests. 

Between the cumulative hours in the car, you have to help them with understanding school concepts, cook food for them, make sure that they are caught up for their Catechism, and still make sure that they are happy. 

All throughout the struggles to keep your family enriched in life, you fight migraines that keep you up at all hours of the night. You fight them as you stuff your students’ brains full of the knowledge of the world around them. You fight them as you try to spend your few free moments with your family. 

You are a fighter. 

I wish I was like you. 

You wished with all of your being for children, and I couldn’t think of a better woman to be a mother.  

Selfishness is one of the few words that isn’t in your vocabulary. I can see the joy in your smile as you spend your hard-earned money on a treat for your children. To see them do their little happy dance in their seat is enough of a reason to buy them a small sweet from a drive-thru. 

You sacrifice excluding an ingredient from a meal—some people might say that it’s not much, but I know how much one ingredient can transform a dish—in order to make the food more appealing for the pickiest.

You are selfless. 

I wish I was like you. 

Your most prized possessions aren’t the pieces of jewelry that you have accumulated through the years; they are the many pictures of the people you love the most in this world. 

To add on to your collection of treasures, you have to pull teeth for your children to smile. You don’t deserve that. I’m sorry. 

You are loving, and you barely ask for anything in return. 

I wish I was like you. 

There have been numerous times where you were woken up by a child in the middle of the night, their eyes the size of saucers caused by the weekly night terrors. You didn’t ask questions other than “what’s wrong?” You only scooted over so they would have room to squeeze into bed with you. 

You don’t ask many questions. 

I wish I was like you. 

Words cannot begin to describe how much I love you. You are there to hug me when I’m upset. You share your favorite movies with me. You used to rub my back when bouts of the stomach flu kicked in. You attend every single one of my dance competitions and don’t complain when I snap at you, which I shouldn’t do. You love music and listen to it whenever possible—even if it means exposing the world to your dorky dancing. 

We may have our arguments—as mothers and teenage daughters do—but never the amount that is thought of as typical. How could I ever argue with the woman who has sacrificed so much for me? 

You are such an extraordinary woman. 

I wish I was like you. 

Love,

your firstborn daughter.