This Mother’s Day, posts everywhere will read about “The best mom ever!” While I wholly support appreciation of parents, I’ve never been able to use such generic, sweeping language because it can feel contrived to me.
I cannot prove my mother is the best by any absolute measure. However, you absolutely can’t measure the love I have for her and the love she has given me. I was conceived when my mother was date-raped, and my understanding of this decision’s weight has steadily grown in the years since she told me.
I simply want to say thank you. Thank you for your courage and strength to carry me, give birth and then raise me at personal inconvenience. Thank you for showing me that the right decision, though not always popular or easy, will always be worthwhile for me and others. Thank you for never tolerating any failure to respect women. Thank you for taking your life’s difficulties and consistently working them for good, without complaining. Thank you for teaching a love of others, not a love of money. Thank you for proving to me that service of others is immensely more valuable than personal gain.
While I fail to uphold all these standards you’ve given me, I thank you for them. Though I may never be good at typical displays of affection, I can assure you of this: I love you mom, and won’t ever stop . . . , after all, you showed me how.
BIO: Nicholas D’Angelo is a Save The 1 blogger and pro-life speaker from upstate NY, and serves on the board of directors of Save the 1. He graduated Summa Cum Laude in May 2013 from the University at Buffalo with a B.S. in Business Administration with a triple concentration in: Supply Chain+Operations, Marketing, and Human Resources.
