I recently heard about a contest on Yahoo to nominate Women who Shine.  There are different categories you can nominate the woman for.  Being a nurse, at a school, I thought about all the teachers and nurses I have worked beside every day. And then I thought about the reasons I would nominate someone.  They inspired my daughter to sing, they taught my other daughter about sharing.  I also thought about the women who have had an influence on me.  Unfortunately both my grandmothers are no longer with us.  And then I thought about the one person who possessed all these qualities and more.  My Mom, Kathy Rehrig.  You can vote for her here.

She is a mix of both my grandmas, her own mom who raised her and my Nana whom she lived with when she married my dad and I first came into the world.  And now she is Oma to my 2 kids.

My mom and my relationship has been a total chick flick drama.  From my wildness as a child to my boy-craziness as a teenager.  I remember in my college rebellion bending over to tie my Nana’s shoes and my mom saw my tattoo for the first  time.  I remember her excitement as my college graduation and my excitement at hers(my rocking mom got a degree at age 40)  She was with me when I saw my daughter would be a girl on the ultrasound.  She was with me when they hooked me to a fetal heart monitor with my second daughter and told I was having an emergency c section.

She helped me when I became a single mom when the baby was 3 months old, moving us back in her house.  She helped me when that baby was 2 and I found out I was 5 months pregnant and totally alone.  She takes them and joins me at every rehearsal, every soccer practice, every Girl Scout meeting.  She reads my blog, she sends me funny jokes when I have a crappy day at work.

I talk to her on the phone every day, visit her every night after work.  I eat her food.  If I can’t get a stain out of my clothes, I sneak it in her wash.  I still steal her clothes.  Best of all she loves me unconditionally.  And she deserves to be recognized as a woman who shines.

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