After 19 years, I think it’s long past time I say thank you.

I’m too old to draw a scribbled picture of a potato with toothpick appendages and call it a portrait of you, so that won’t make the cut this year. Nor can I buy a bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolates, and I certainly can’t get by with another cheesy card, complete with a cute doodle on the front and a rhyming message on the inside that’s so generic it hurts. There will be a million people this Mother’s Day who claim their mother is the best, No. 1 in the world, so on and so forth, using the latter strategies to prove their points. I write this to you to make my case for why you are indeed the winner by far.

Though they say Mother’s Day is just another Hallmark holiday, it has a lot more depth with a mother like you to thank. As I’ve been away from home, I couldn’t let another year pass without acknowledging everything I’ve come to realize you do and have done for me. I don’t know how you did it, all those years of asking for no more than a hug in exchange for endless care for little ol’ clueless me, oblivious to just how much you supported me from under the surface. So this year, instead of placing those same flowers on the kitchen counter, I write this in hopes I can begin to thank you for it all.

Without you, I never would have learned the importance of shamelessly eating chocolate when the time comes. So much of society has become centered around Barbie-like body images, but you were there to show me that nothing compares to a creamy milk chocolate Cadbury bar, no matter the cost. Of course, nothing goes better with chocolate than a few tears that need to be shed, and through this, you taught me how to let go when the time comes.

However, you also showed me that tears don’t always have to come from a place of sadness. You remind me to laugh until tears stream down my face, globs of mascara and all, whether it be at a Jimmy Fallon lip sync video or at the SBD one of us let loose. Along with your laughter, I have learned that being a woman doesn’t mean acting like a dainty glass figure all the time. You burp louder than any guy I’ve ever heard, and the proud smirk and giggle combo that always follows has taught me it’s always better out than in, regardless of what anyone else thinks.

You have also given me the freedom to chase my dreams, even when they change on a daily basis and rarely make any logical sense. I’ve pitched to you just about every possible life plan there is, and every time you encourage me without any sign of doubt. Even at 12:30 a.m., I know you’ll be there to answer the phone and listen to my genuine freak-out about where my life is headed, knowing full well that by the morning I’ll have a completely different plan in place. Despite my stress-balling and stubborn approach to nearly everything I do, you have managed to train me to go with the flow (even when the flow gets interrupted).

Most of all, you have taught me how to forgive, even when the one I’m forgiving may not deserve it. There were so many moments where I should have been done for—the countless times I came home far later than expected, the days when I was an irrational teen-aged drama queen, and especially when I ate all of the Christmas cookies without asking. Yet you always found a way to forgive and forget…and I learned how to apologize.

Over the years, you have shown me what it truly means to be a mother. Though a big part of the job is wiping diapers, chauffeuring ‘til you drop and cooking pasta to feed a kitchen teeming with children that for the most part don’t belong to you, I realize now the selfless sacrifices you’ve made to make it much more than that. The nearly 20 years you’ve gifted me with have been filled with uncontrollable laughter, unconditional love and the best damn chicken Parm this world has ever seen. No matter how many letters I write, I cannot come close to repaying you for filling my heart (and stomach) with all of these things. The least I can do is dedicate this to you and show you how thankful I am. Though you will humbly dismiss everything I have written here, you deserve the world. I love you always forever.