Perhaps motherhood is less about who we are
and more about who we let our children become.

Thanks, Mum, for letting me become me.

Thanks for letting me play in the dirt,
build forts in the woods
and climb trees taller than our house.

Thank you for my brothers–
companions in the world of pretend,
where winter was always coming
and we had to stock our pantry with
meat and potatoes–
pine cones and red chunks of log.

Thanks for giving me my own tiny garden
to grow flowers and cucumbers
and look for fairies in the morning dewdrops.

Thanks for letting me stay up late reading
“The Hobbit” and “Anne of Green Gables,”
and for those quiet chats before bed,
when the hectic bustle of the day was over
and you lay in your long cosy nightgown,
listening to me.

Thanks for taking me travelling
to live overseas,
to speak a new language
and see so many places
beyond our small town in Canada.
(It was awesome, eh?)

Thanks for making those thousands of school lunches
and the unimaginable amounts of laundry,
for letting me play soccer and do drama
and especially for coming to my plays.

Thanks for encouraging me to write, take pictures and chase dreams.

And as I read stories to my own brood of elves and fairies,
build forts and make gardens with them,
I smile at getting to be a kid again,
your happy daughter, still.