Happy Mother's day mama

So I recorded this on Christmas Eve and I thought it didn't work, but here it is, my mother singing Christmas Karaoke and my dad conducting her. I love you Mom.



And here is the essay I spoke about earlier.

She Never Met a Stranger
My mother has never met a stranger—seriously. I have never known her to be uncomfortable or shy in any type of group. She just speaks her mind and lets her personality shine through. I can’t count the times we’ve been in a restaurant or at a movie and my mother comes back from the restroom only to tell us the life story of the woman who’d been in the stall next to her. It was as if they had talked for hours instead of just five minutes. My mother is from the South, and her delicate, feminine Southern drawl immediately puts a person at ease. She calls everyone “honey,” “sweety,” or “sweetheart,” not only because it is her nature, but also because she can never remember anyone’s name! She also has a tendency to make up her own adages, such as, “You gotta go through the fire before you see the light,” or, “Now, don’t go getting your pants in an uproar!” Many times, my brother, father, and I have laughed until we cried over something my mother said, especially because she didn’t mean to be funny. The beauty is, my mother would laugh right along with us as we laughed at what she’d said. My mother is an amazing woman. She has done it all—joined the Marine Corps, worked as a flight attendant, dated a rock star, traveled the world, driven (and still drives) a school bus, and comes up with a hilarious story from each adventure. She openly expresses her love for my father, who is, according to her, “the cat’s banana.” When my brother and I were young, my mother didn’t work an outside job; instead, she stayed home and acted as our teacher, our comforter, and even our playmate. In fact, it’s impossible to pinpoint just one thing my mother has taught me. I am simply my mother’s daughter, through and through. I am who I am because of her.

Since space doesn’t permit me to tell every story that would describe my mother, I’ll relate just one. Several years ago, when I was still a child, my parents bought a video camera. It was a huge monstrosity that we carted around on every vacation, brought to every important event in our lives, and used on every holiday. I’m still not sure why, but my mother became the designated camerawoman in our family. If you were to view the early videos of our family, you might get motion sickness due to her quick cuts from one side of the room to the other. But since then she has become a pro. She also adds her own commentary to EVERYTHING she tapes. This commentary includes everything from the date to the location to each of our names, and we always reluctantly comply. My mom is hardly ever on screen, except for the rare occasion when she places the camera on a tripod or allows one of us to run the camera. I remember one particular vacation in Florida when my mother documented every event as it transpired. One day, we went to the beach, and we all sat and ate a picnic as my mom filmed us. We recited our usual description of what we were doing or wearing or thinking. All of us seemed a little bored of the camera. After all, we’d lived through years of this, so we quickly lost interest in Mom’s questions. Since we were no longer responding to Mom’s inquiries, she wandered away from the family—far enough that we couldn’t hear her running commentary but could still see her. I rarely watched our family movies after they were filmed; they were just placed in a box with other tapes to be forgotten. But years later, I was feeling particularly nostalgic and decided to watch some of the old family videos. I remember thinking how silly they all were and how many insignificant things had been documented. After viewing many hours of long-ago Christmases and dance recitals I really wish I could forget, I stumbled on the video from that day at the beach in Florida. I watched as Mom filmed and asked us to introduce ourselves. I watched as we became slightly annoyed with her line of questioning and how we eventually lost interest entirely. Then I watched as she wandered away from us. What I heard next has stayed with me over the years. My mother continued to film us, and as she did so, she said something like, “Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for my wonderful family.” But it didn’t stop there. She proceeded to zoom in on each one of us in turn, and she continued to pray. She thanked Heavenly Father for bringing us into her life, for bringing her the gospel so that she could have an eternal family. She thanked Him for every talent and attribute that she loved about each of us, because she knew they came from Him. As she prayed, she cried. As she ended her prayer, the tape ended—but my mother’s loving prayer has stayed with me.

That was not the first or the last time I heard my mother pray and bear witness of the truthfulness of the gospel—she does that all the time. But in that moment, I knew my mother loved me, and I knew she loved her Heavenly Father. Throughout my life, she has taught me to love other people, whether they are strangers in a restroom or the family members you see every single day. She has taught me to love life, to live every day to the fullest. Most importantly, she has taught me to love the gospel, to love my Heavenly Father, and to thank Him every day for the wonderful people in my life. I love you, Mom. You are my example and my best friend.
Written by Angie Robson for her mother Sonja Robson (so there)