My mother is a counselor. Her job is to listen to people when they're having struggles and to give them guidance. She fights her own battles along with everybody else. I have my own battles too, as well as all of my friends and family. I had a warrior to help me through my battles while battling her own, she gave me love and support. My mom helped me fight the battles that shaped who I am today. This is to all the moms out there who are always there for their daughters, no matter what. We love you.

Mom, we don't remember the day we were born. We don't remember for a long time after that. But you do. You remember the moment you saw our face, the way we looked at you when we were swaddled up in a blanket. You immediately felt a powerful connection, you immediately loved us with all of your heart. You continued loving us and caring for us our whole lives.

Think back to when we took our first steps, spoke our first word. Your heart swelled with joy. We looked up at you; we didn't understand why you were so happy, but we were happy too.

Flash forward to our toddler years. We marched over to our toys, throwing them across the room as a form of play. You scolded us and made us put them back. A tantrum was thrown, but after a few hundred times, we learned our lesson. We begged you for our current food craving constantly. More often than not, we would not receive the food we wanted. We slowly grew out of our clothes, and you grumbled silently because we grew so fast. In your heart, you were sad. Time just seemed to fly faster and faster.

Now we're preteens. We wanted to hang out with our friends at school, always looked forward to recess, and traded our food at lunch. Friend groups seemed to form, separated by the tables in the cafeteria. We would come crying to you when one of our friends didn't treat us well. You dreaded our teenage years, when you would have to let us go out with friends by ourselves.

As teenagers, we became more rebellious. Some of us snuck out, some of us back talked (a lot), and some of us ignored homework until it piled up too high to ignore. You still loved us, you really did, but we drove you crazy. Some of us developed anxiety, maybe even depression. We went through hard breakups and lost friendships. We failed tests, and you held us and cried with us through it all. You held on to us when the world seemed to fall apart.

College came way faster than you thought it would. You dreaded saying goodbye when you dropped us off. We did too. The applications for college were submitted, scholarships were received, you planned out how the heck you were going to afford us. We packed our things over the course of the summer and when college drew closer, you soaked up every memory you could. We might not have shown it much, but we knew that when we said goodbye it would be one of the hardest, even if we were 30 minutes away from home.

We remember the times you held us and comforted us when we needed you. We remember you being there when we pushed you away and claimed we were fine. You knew better, just as we do now. We think about you as we go through our days. We reminisce on our childhood when everything was simple. You are always in our memories. You are always in our hearts. We know we don't seem to appreciate you or give you as much grace as you deserve. You deserve the world to us and all we want, all I want, is to give you the world. You deserve the world because you are always there for us. You are always supporting us no matter what. You love us unconditionally. And we love you so much for that. So so much.

Thank you Mom, for being our warrior, for being our mom. For being my mom.