Mom, thanks for bringing me into this world.  I know there are times, like when I "redecorated" the front hall or spewed milk on your boss during dinner, that you wondered why you had me, but I'm glad you decided I was worth it.

Thanks for being a storyteller. I love it when you talk about the life you had as a kid (and it helped me understand why you wouldn't let me build a treehouse) and what it was like to suit up in Kevlar just to fly over Sarajevo and Baghdad, and everything you saw and did there (and the stories you can't tell me yet because you still see me as your little daughter).

Thanks for being a firm hand.  I know I was a bratty kid and an even worse teenager, but I know I wouldn't be where I am today without the discipline you ingrained in me.  I wouldn't know how to cook or clean or just take care of myself if you hadn't drilled it into my head that "our house is our home" and that I "live live to serve this house."  The more I'm living on my own, the more I'm grateful you taught me to be an independent woman.

Thanks for being an inspiration.  You made a hard choice to stay in your job, and work as long as you did.  I respect you and Papa all the more for the fact that you were a team, that you stay together, even through the troubles, the long separations, the hard road.  The way you speak of each other, the job that you do, I envy and want that for my future.

Mom, you are wonderful, and I'm grateful.  Thanks.