To the epitome of strength (a.k.a. Mom),

You always put on a brave face and continue to make sacrifices for your two daughters. You continue to make me laugh, challenge me to be smarter and thankfully, strive to keep me trendy (by shopping for me way too much!!!). I appreciate your ability to stay young- you can joke about inappropriate things, you can maneuver around Snapchat, you can rack up more likes than me on Facebook and you can gossip with me about anyone. There’s no doubt you’d be the #1 Cool Mom on any list.

But things haven’t always been bright and fun for us.

At the hardest of times, when a small-minded and weak person would’ve given up and allowed adversity to consume them, you have risen from the ashes like a Phoenix.

For twenty years, you have stood beside me, despite your own hardships, and adopted a dozen more titles alongside “Mom.”

When I was five, you were my Hero.

When I was ten, you were my Teacher.

When I was fifteen, you were my Cheerleader.

When I turned twenty, you were my Therapist.

Yet, through each year one title remained continuous- my Best Friend.

You wear every label I’ve deemed you with pride, and you bear the heaviest one gracefully- single mom. You are the bravest and strongest person I know.

You’ve sacrificed and struggled and stressed, but you’ve raised two teenage girls on your own. That alone is a huge feat, but you didn’t stop at the bear minimum. You put the both of us through high school without fault. You pulled extra jobs to make sure we could cheer alongside our best friends every year, you handed me over your keys so I could drive a car to school every day, you took me shopping whenever I “needed” a new outfit for that weekend and you told me I didn’t have to get a job even though I knew I needed to. And now the both of us are at an amazing University.

You’ve never tried to stifle me, yet you didn’t turn your cheek and let me do whatever I wanted. You alone instilled the best values in me than any couple of parents could have. You are the reason I am the way I am today.

If I can be half the woman that you are, I will consider myself lucky. I continue to push myself in school so I can guarantee us a future brighter than we ever imagined.

We started Gilmore Girls together before I left for Fall semester, and I couldn’t make myself wait until this summer to start watching again (sorry!). As Rory graduated Chilton, she spoke about her mother (and best friend), “She filled our house with love and fun and books and music, unflagging in her efforts to give me role models from Jane Austen to Eudora Welty to Patti Smith. As she guided me through these incredible eighteen years, I don’t know if she ever realized that the person I most wanted to be was her.”

I can’t find anything that relates to me more.

Thank you for everything,