Dear Mom,

About seven years ago, my whole world was turned upside down. I was just becoming a teenager and along with all of my moody hormone changes you and my father decided to split. For that I do not blame either of you, sometimes love just goes away and things don’t work out the way we all had planned and that’s okay.

This is a time in my life when I needed stability and somehow you still provided this for my little sister and I. You tried to keep life as normal as possible even though life couldn’t have possibly changed any more than it had. You still tried your best to get us to every club meeting, every sports practice, every dance, and every sleepover. At the time, I’ll admit, that I took this for granted. I didn’t see why this was such a strain on you being a single mother because all of my friends had two parents that would take turns driving them, I was too young and naive to understand. For all of the temper tantrums I threw when I could not make it somewhere or if I had to ask friends for rides because you had to work, I apologize.

The same goes for spending money. I didn’t understand why you couldn’t just hand me ten dollars when I wanted to go to the movies with my friends. All of their parents did it, they did it all the time. Now that I’m a young adult myself, I see now how much you had to sacrifice to be able to afford all of the things that you did buy for us. I now know the value of a dollar and how hard it is to fork over all of your hard earned money just for groceries and gas money.

Most of all, thank you for providing the love and support that was equivalent to two parents when you were physically just one. You were hard on me about my grades, even grounding me if I had a C. You are so kind and giving, even when you had nothing to give but your time. You have raised my sister and me to be hardworking, independent young women that go out of their way to help others, even when there is no praise to be offered. I am so proud to call you my mother and I pray that someday I’ll be half the mother to my kids that you were to me.

Love you forever and happy Father's Day,

Your daughter