My Mom.

Written late the night before and read at my Mom’s funeral:

Kim was my mother. I’m the oldest of four and I’ve been told more than once that I heavily resemble my mother. 

Over the years I see her face more and more when I look in the mirror. Even though until this September Mom and I had spent some years apart, I know a lot of me comes from her, and that she and I have a lot in common. 

Much like her, here I am, a young mother raising 4 children without a mom of my own. 

I remember vividly all four of us girls getting chicken pox not too long after our grandmother passed.

Mom, worn out from caring for four miserable, itchy daughters, fell in bed with us and cried out for her own mother. 

Mom taught me to be a hard worker, an independent woman, an avid reader, a lover of knowledge, and the type of person to take what I wanted in life. 

Some lessons she taught me by example and some lessons she taught me through things she wished she could have done herself. 

One thing I can say with confidence in regards to my mother’s legacy is she brought women into this world who weren’t defined by their past but were made stronger for it. And now together we’re raising the 10 children I love most in this world and I have no doubt the world will be a better place for it.