Dear Mom, with Mother’s Day approaching, I thought that it was long past time to apologize for a few things that I may have been responsible for over the past 50+ years. Sorry Mom for being such a colicky baby that you couldn’t bask in the awe and wonder of your first child and that you weren’t able to pursue your teaching certificate. Sorry for wanting to be a boy so bad that I refused to trade my overalls for frilly dresses. Sorry you had to play nurse to brother Len when he got 15 stitches in his belly from the twisted fender on my bike (which had happened as a result of running into the barn, the grain truck and all manner of things in the course of learning to ride). Sorry for telling brother Tony to pet the mouse that I caught meaning that you had to drop everything that you were doing to take him to the doctor (did he ever get rabies shots, I don’t remember?) and while we are on the subject of Tony, sorry for daring him to ski off the top of the barn in the snow slider skates that we got for Christmas. Sorry for convincing the boys that tag on the top of the grain bins was so much more fun than tag on the lawn (I know that a couple of sprained ankles resulted). Sorry for wiping out every single motor bike that came on the farm causing you to pay for the mirrors and signal lights of my friends’ bikes (thankfully once I broke them off our bikes they were never replaced). Sorry for getting the motor bike impounded by the RCMP for being caught riding on the road near town. Sorry for putting a rubber shark in your bed the night you watched Jaws and for hiding a real stuffed crow in a shoebox in my closet to keep you from snooping through my stuff (I know that you are petrified of birds).

Sorry for wrecking your new microwave by trying to figure out how it worked with a knife in the latching mechanism , the door open and my finger holding the start button down (I think it short circuited, but you were so mad that I never really did find out exactly what I’d done). Sorry for wrecking the next microwave by thinking I could cook a hard-boiled egg in it – who knew the egg would blow up with such force that it would break the latch on the door. Sorry for putting liquid dish detergent in your new dishwasher instead of the powdered stuff you told me to use. Sorry for staining your ceiling trying to figure out how the blender worked by leaving the lid off of it and pressing the purée setting. And when you couldn’t be home to eat with us, sorry for ruining the supper that you left for us by putting the lasagna, jello salad and biscuits in the blender and serving it to the boys in glasses so that I wouldn’t have to do too many dishes. Sorry for never following your recipes and making you eat meatloaf for 4 years every way but the right way . . . your way. Sorry for thinking that garlic and cheerios would be good in scrambled eggs. Sorry for the supper I cooked and served on your best China for your 13th anniversary – I really thought that “1 pkg.” of yeast meant the can (I’d never seen yeast come any other way) and how do you know that you don’t like pizza made with ketchup, baloney and Kraft cheese slices until you have tried it once? Sorry for sneaking into the garden and pinching bits out of the zucchinis on the six zucchini plants you grew one year so that you thought you had the only chickens in the country that liked zucchini.

Sorry for spraying myself with Raid instead of Off. Sorry for accidentally drinking nail polish remover at camp. Sorry for the stink I caused about wearing a bra – I truly thought that if I wore my t-shirts tight enough and enough of them at the same time that those things in the front wouldn’t be able to grow. Sorry for running over the picnic table when I was learning to drive the car and for racing the car once I learned how to drive. Sorry for leaving the car idle too long in the winter causing it to overheat and blow a head gasket. Sorry for thinking that I could freeze dry my favorite blue jeans on the clothes line at 30 below and then for throwing a tantrum because I couldn’t thaw them in time to wear them (it was never your fault). Sorry for every time that I snuck back out my bedroom window at night after coming in on time for my curfew. Sorry for quitting university and running away to the mountains to work for a season (I knew you were worried about me). Sorry for bringing home every lost puppy (kitten, ferret and bunny) – real and metaphorical. Sorry for moving 14 times and being too cheap to hire professionals (thanks for never being too busy to help). Sorry for inviting you to tea one afternoon and almost having a baby in your car because I didn’t know that I had been in labour most of the day. Sorry for calling you to complain about the things that my kids had done and thank you for never saying, “I told you so” despite all the times that you wished that I would someday have children just like me.

I love you, Happy Mother’s Day, Your One and Only Baby Girl