If you read my last post or attended my dad’s retirement party and heard my speech, you’ve already been given a glimpse of the masculine half of my upbringing. After I gave my speech, and the night progressed on, I had already been thinking about what I would say or write if someone asked me to do the same for my mother. What you don’t know is that I actually wrote an article about her to warm myself up for writing about my dad.

As the night of Dad’s party began to come to a close, my mom didn’t give a speech, but she gave a beautiful toast to her husband at the end of the evening. She stood on stage and for the first time, I watched as my dad stood in her shadow while she read her toast to the crowd of 350 people that had come to celebrate her man. I couldn’t help but beam with pride watching the two of them up on the podium.

Damn. I come from two kick-ass people. What a powerhouse couple.

I really can’t help myself in moments like these where all you can do is really breathe in the moment and savor every detail about it.

My dad was wearing a beautifully tailored suit with a light blue tie that had (of course) been put together by my mom. My mom looked beautiful. Though style comes naturally to her, she had put her outfit together weeks in advance. She had decided to go with a Carolina Herrera look. She had started with a long skirt that she owned and is tailored to her tiny body and even smaller waist. The skirt is mainly hot pink. It had a faux-sash that cinches her middle and the skirt is pink and white striped and has beautiful, large flowers all over it. She had paired it with a tailored, crisp, white button-down shirt and the shoes she wore underneath that you couldn’t see were beautiful hot-pink suede sling-back heels. They tied the outfit together perfectly.

Like her outfit that night, my mom is actually perfect. Okay, so she’s not actually perfect in that way that no human being is perfect, but if you look at my mom, how she thinks, carries herself, and her overall outlook on life, I really don’t know anyone who could fit the description better.

Before I go on, I should state that I already know she is reading this and thinking two things: First, that I am incredibly biased and second that her beauty comes from her ability to “clean up well.” I think that’s a lot of hooey. However, she is entitled to her humble opinion of herself. That humility is only more of what makes her so perfect.

My mom is the most positive person I know. She literally dances without music. My dad and I have caught her cooking in the kitchen while unconsciously doing dance moves with no music playing. She does it because she’s happy and she can’t help herself.

Her positive outlook comes in handy in more ways than one. My dad often uses her as a good luck charm when he’s watching sports because my mother has this uncanny ability to turn games around simply by sitting down and watching them. My dad both uses this, but I know it also drives him crazy, mainly because my mom’s knowledge of sports is quite slim, but she’s always happy to come in, route for his team and then watch as they pull out of whatever pickle they’ve spent the last 3 innings or two quarters in.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget the story of my parents watching Craig Biggio’s 3,000th hit back in the summer of 2007. I don’t know or remember all the statistics, but the night he got his 3,000th hit, there were several things that needed to go into play in order for him to make it to 3,000 on that particular night. On the way to the game, my mom had made the comment of, “Well, this will be so exciting to see Biggio’s 3,000th hit!” My dad was amused as my mom’s knowledge of baseball is quite small. He tried to warn her by explaining the statistics that had to be in play in order for this to happen.  As he explained what would need to happen, my mother’s face lit up. “Wow! That’s going to be exciting to see all that tonight!” She probably clapped her hands in excitement. My dad was both amused and annoyed that she refused to listen to his warning. Later that night, as Milo Hamilton called the incredible career achievement that Biggio earned that night, I know my dad looked at my mom’s beaming smile and watched her child-like excitement which probably had him feeling the way Mom makes life in general feel: magical.

As you can probably already imagine, my mom loves to laugh. In fact, there are often things that can get her into trouble because some of the things she finds are so hysterically funny are things like people’s furrowed facial expressions when they take themselves too seriously. Often the even-larger frown that’s given when she starts to laugh has her laughing so hard she cries. As such, my dad’s dry, sarcastic sense of humor matches her perfectly. She also loves anything that has a dry wit to it.

At the same time, some of my favorite times with my mom and listening to her laugh have not only come from me or my dad teasing her, but also from spending time with her sister who is so much like my mom, it’s nearly crazy that two human beings are so similar even though they’re a decade apart. In fact, my mom’s sister lives in the Boston area, and during the two years that I lived there, whenever I’d spend the night at my aunt’s house (and uncle and two amazing cousins), it felt like home because the feeling of their home is so similar to the one I grew up in. Mom’s sister, Care (or Carrie), also has two daughters. Care, Julia, and Laura are among my top five favorite women on the planet and the five of us all love to laugh. It’s always slightly dangerous when we’re all together, but having that quadruple dose of four of my favorite women on earth is the most rejuvenating and magical feeling that there is for me. I also can’t leave out that my Uncle Wayne (Care’s husband and Julia and Laura’s dad) is also in my top five favorite men. Really, our families spending time together have created some unbelievable memories.

Besides all of that, my mom is just a fantastic woman in general. She’s one of those rare, unicorn wonder women that rest of us aspire to be. She makes it look easy. You know those women who always seem to have a clean house, are thin without trying, having classy style, a great business, are caring moms, and have the ability to do things like carry all their pregnancy weight with their perfect basketball babies and then lose the weight within weeks of giving birth and have their 6-week-olds sleeping through the night? No, you don’t? You think they don’t exist? Meet my mom. I’m actually sincerely not joking on anything on that list.

I count myself blessed as I have dozens of women that I can call friends both where I live and also littered all over the country. I absolutely love every single one of them and the richness their presence has given to my life. Really, God has created some absolutely spectacular people. However, if I had to pick a best friend, it would definitely be my mom. You probably could have guessed that one, but I’m just stating it for the record.

I have a lot of “favorite people on the planet” (as you can probably tell), but Mom has always been at the very top. I call her for everything. Really. Everything. I call her for bad days, good days, advice, just because, and sometimes, just because I miss her. We live in the same city now and there are still times when I call her to say I miss her, to which she usually laughs and says, “Well, then come on over, silly girl!”

To that, I say, “don’t mind if I do.” You are the bread to my butter, the laugh to my joke, the couch to my favorite movie, the style to my wardrobe, and as already stated, my very best friend. Love you, Momma.

*The idea of the title of this article came from the May 1st episode of Splitting Up Together. If you’re curious about it, go watch it!