Not a Breakup

This year is the first year that my mom is not the only woman there to take care of me. When I was growing up I remember falling down and scrapping my knee, or Tatum running a bicycle into my leg and my mom making sure that the cut was clean and there was no infection. Most of the time it was dusted off and we were told we were fine but some times, when very sunburned, we were stripped down to our underwear and covered in mask to pull the heat out.

This year will be the first year my mom won't be the only woman cooking for me. My mom's lasagna is the best, you don't get a vote because you haven't had it, if you have and you say its not, you're a liar. At Christmas time she makes cookies and candies and all sorts of crafty treats, pretty much our plate is never empty. She makes my favorite chili that is best eaten on a cold day. She's made me octopus hot dogs, the noodles that fill you up, and taught me that peanut butter goes on both pieces of bread. Not to mention her cherry cheese cake, it is a force to be reckoned with.

This will be the first year my mom will not be the only woman to clean up after me. I can remember cleaning the house when I was a kid, sometimes it was easy and other times it was just plain crazy. We would pull everything out of our room and pile it in the middle of the living room and them move it all back in by the end of the day. The reason we did this is because we weren't good at cleaning. We could do our best to pick up the room and I remember throwing things under the covers to make it look like a pillow or moving something big to cover a stain on the floor, but mom would always find the gunk, crud, and the mess.

This will be the first year my mom will not be the only woman to read me to sleep. As I was growing many nights we would fall to sleep listening to the misgivings of the children in the Piggle Wiggle series or the adventure of Elonwie and the Book of Three. To this day my mom and I read books together listening to the stories in our heads as we imagine the characters playing out the plot in our head.

This is the first year of my life when I have been married to a wonder woman. Kristin cares for me, cleans up after me, cooks for me, and even reads stories for me at night. Like mom she watches me get into shenanagins and sneak my way out of them. But she will never replace my mom, and thank God she's not trying to.

My mom carried me and birthed me. She watched me grow and taught me school then saw me as I turned into an adult and left her house. She talked to me when I had no friends in Amarillo and then when I had some while I was in Colby. She's helped me make decisions and taken blame for things that weren't her fault. She has and is the greatest mother I could ever have known, and now she will be a grandmother to my baby.

I've heard it said that a boy will leave his mother and go to his wife. To me this sounds like a breakup. But I have a 23 year long relationship with my mom that continues strong to this day. There has never been a time in my life when I haven't been able to talk to her and there still isn't. We talk on a weekly basis and sometimes even more than that. My mother is a strong rock that my mountain is connected to and she always will be. So this is not a breakup, it's more of an extension to our relationship.

Dear Mom, you are the best.

Love your second son.

Kerry Dreu Barnett