She drives me crazy.

Take a teenager, add a mother, and what have you got? Chaos? Rebellion? Contention? A smart mouth? Those are just a few things that come to mind immediately. LOL Not that I'm complaining. I have my first teenager and one on the way. What a new and wonderful world I've entered. I feel a whole new appreciation for my mom who raised nine teenagers.

I look back on memories of my mother. Man, she drove me nuts. We were like oil and vinegar half the time. We never agreed about anything and she had no taste when it came to clothes. On the other hand . . .

I remember snuggling against her side when I was a child, her arms around me, and even sometimes into my teen years, to listen to her mellow voice read out loud. She was the one that instilled in me a love of stories. She was also a master poet. It runs in my family. My grandmother was a master poet too. All of my sisters are also super creative that way.

I never really got into poetry, but I did get into songwriting, which I did frequently. So the gene is there. I can still remember the rough feel of my mother's hands and how they always smelled slightly of onions from cooking. She would make us stand (for what felt like hours) chopping onions for stuffing on Thanksgiving and Christmas. I still cringe when I think of it!

She let me decorate her with makeup whenever I wanted. I have hundreds of memories of sitting on the edge of the toilet seat in the bathroom visiting with her while she soaked in the tub (another habit I gleaned from her.) She sang me lullabies, got mad when I woke her up coming in late and then got mad at me if I didn't didn't wake her. I just couldn't win.

While on my mission, she never missed a week of sending me letters and all the while she was battling breast cancer. She was my champion, my strength, the wind beneath my wings. She never like one boyfriend I had until Bryan. I don't know what it was about him, but somehow, he wrapped her around his little finger. I think it was that she knew I'd always be taken care of if I married him. She was all about finding a man to take care of you. (She wasn't super independent until late in her life)

I still feel her around. She talks to me. Some people might say I'm schizophrenic. I prefer the term, in tune. I understand her words. She laughs when I wear high heels and comforts me when I'm depressed. She is still cheering me on.

I miss her so much. She died fifteen years ago from her breast cancer. Two weeks before I got married. She battled the disease for ten years. She was amazing, smart, talented and wonderful. I wish she were still around (physically) to drive me crazy.

(These are pics of my mother, Judith Lee Robertson, and me. Ain't she great?