Like Mother Like Daughter

My mother and I have had quite the jour­ney together over the past 25 years of my life (almost 25 years!). We went through some very dif­fi­cult years in our rela­tion­ship, but the Lord helped us to for­give and we have been super close ever since. At times our rela­tion­ship can be such a riot because we are alike in so many ways. This causes us to have the best of times or we just end up dri­ving each other crazy. But I just love it! I love know­ing that no mat­ter what hap­pens or how much I drive my mom crazy, she is going to love me to the deep­est, ugli­est part of me. (Because in real­ity she knows she has the same deep, ugly place.) I love call­ing her to share a story that I know is going to make her crack up because we have the same sense of humor. I love call­ing her up with my hypochon­driac con­cerns about whether this mole is can­cer­ous, or if I am going to have a heart attack because my chest hurts, or if I have a brain tumor because I have a headache. Luck­ily for her, I got mar­ried so Vitaliy receives most of these ques­tions now. But I usu­ally call her for a sec­ond opin­ion; Dr. Oz says we should always get a sec­ond opinion!

When I was a fresh­man in col­lege, I went away to school at William Jew­ell Col­lege. I was 4 hours away from my mom. This was a huge move for us. Our first sep­a­ra­tion. I received a Hall­mark card every day that year. I know I tend to exag­ger­ate some­times, but Inter­net, this is not a joke. Okay, maybe there were a hand­ful of days she didn’t send one, but come on, this was still incred­i­ble! Every day I walked to the mail­room in antic­i­pa­tion of the card I knew my mom would send. It was so unbe­liev­able to me how much my mom loved me that she would take the time to pick out each card, write spe­cial mes­sages in them, spend all the money on them, and take the time to mail them. It was such a demon­stra­tion of her love for me and a con­stant reminder that she missed me SO MUCH. My mom has always said that when I left for school that year, she knew I would never live per­ma­nently in St. Louis again. But she would also say in return that she never thought I would be as far away as I am today.

My mom was patient. She waited. She prayed. And con­tin­ued to wait. “At least move some­where in dri­ving dis­tance from me, ” she would say. But it never hap­pened. I told her I just couldn’t give up the beau­ti­ful sights and weather of Cal­i­for­nia. And let me tell you, she was good. She said all the right things, dream­ing up the fan­tasy pic­ture of my house in the Mid­west. She even made a mosaic pic­ture for us as a Christ­mas gift last year of our beau­ti­ful house in the Mid­west that was wait­ing for me and my fam­ily. It finally started to sink in that I was stay­ing put which was around the same time that God started work­ing in my mom’s heart to go on an adven­ture to Cal­i­for­nia. It took about 6 months for my mom to finally trust that the Lord would be on this adven­ture with her. And so she’s doing it! My mother is mov­ing to Cal­i­for­nia!! She is com­ing to be closer to me but even more so to go on an adven­ture with the Lord. Her kids are finally all grown up and she is able to go explore the world on her own. I am so excited for her to take this jour­ney with Him. And I am so look­ing for­ward to pop­corn and Milk Duds (I do Peanut M&Ms) at the movies, shop­ping dates, Christ­mas together, and so much more.

Mom, I love you so much and can’t wait for you to get here. If you are from Cal­i­for­nia and read­ing this blog, please wel­come my mother to the beau­ti­ful, sunny state of Cal­i­for­nia in the com­ments below. And if you aren’t from Cali read­ing this, please send her your well wishes! She will get your mes­sage because she’s our biggest fan and and the per­son who most con­sis­tently leaves us comments.

Happy Thurs­day!

~Can­dace