Mother's Day is tough...

...tough for those of us who have mothers suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's Disease. My mom doesn't know her family anymore, though she enjoys visits from all of us. She's too far away for my sister and I to just hop in the car and go see her and that is tough.

I spent the Mother's Day weekend thinking about the things my mom taught me. I don't really remember her ever telling us "No, you can't" if we wanted to try something. For me, that equated to piano, viola, and harp lessons, ballet classes and encouragement to write. With my sister, it's similar -- voice lessons, choir, theatre and art -- she took over my mom's looms and weaves some incredible things. We both cook and bake. We love books.

Mom was environmentally active before it was popular. No way did we litter or else we'd incur her wrath. And I remember her having us volunteer at a glass recycling center in an abandoned factory. The only fun part of it was we got to break glass -- a lot of glass!

She was strict about what we ate -- we didn't have a boatload of candy or snacks. She was big on fruit and things like that. No sugar cereals for breakfast. This may not seem like much, but I don't think any of us eat a lot of junk food for that reason. Stunk when we were kids, but it sure helped us as adults.

Thanks, Mom.