Go Moms!

Brain cancer is...

 ...celebrating Mother's Day Day 2.

Please let this be the only "distanced" Mother's Day.  Moms, pretty much by definition, don't do distances.

With the help of the new forms of hanging out that we all use, the Guillaumes had a full Mother's Day.  Above you see we enjoyed Italian takeout with LuAnn and friends Monica and Susanne at LuAnn's house.  Darrell and I were waaaaay down at our end of the table.  Still, everyone was smiling and sharing good times, as you see.

We also had a great Zoom conversation with Zach and Summer and later with Alex, Tiana, and Nova.  Too, Madison arranged a Munns Family Zoom party:

We hung out with LuAnn, all her kids, most of her kids' partners, and almost all her kids' kids and some kids' kids' partners.  LuAnn said this screen shows the benefit of all the years that go into being a Mother.  Go Mom!  (Thanks, Madison, for the invitation and photos.)

Darrell and I spent Mothers Day Day 1 thinking about about mothers at their best.  What does good "mothering"* look like? We talked about what each of us learned from our mothers.  Number One on Darrell's list from his wonderful mother Beverly was kindness.

At lunch today, I toasted LuAnn and told her that so many things that I hold central to my identity I attribute to her.  Thanks, Mom, for showing me through example and instruction how to live my beliefs, how to be strong and independent and--at the same time--open and vulnerable.  Thanks for teaching me the power of the written word and to love words themselves.  Thanks for helping me to find the beauty in the world around us.

In the end, We decided that mothers, at their very best, help each of us grow into the best versions of ourselves.  They seem to do this by how they live their lives and through the support and feedback they provide.  In last year's Mother's Day post (here; A Shoutout to Mamas**)  Alex said that moms do all this while making it look easy.  Go Moms!

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mamas.

*Side note:  Darrell and I had a lot of trouble distinguishing how--aside from the basic biology of it--being a mother is different from being a father.  In the end, we decided that it's easier to talk about being a good parent.  Not sure if that's important here, but we're still thinking about it.

**We posted Alex's entry last year from Amsterdam, the first stop on our UK vacation.  Remember those days, when you could travel to different countries?

Today's Blooms

from Alex, Tiana, and Nova

 

from Zachary and Summer