Mothers are Superheroes!
Like many, Mother’s Day always brings me happiness and a bit of sadness. My mom would have been 95 this year and was the most awesome mom. She always supported me, kept me in line (not easy), taught me to always be fair to everyone and look out for those less fortunate. Her spirit lives on in everything I do, every minute of my life.
The other bit of sadness is that my two special needs sons Joey and Evan are nonverbal and are unable to tell my wife April what an amazing mother she is. They show it in other ways, with their smiles and laughter. They show their gratitude by cuddling when she hugs them and how their smiles light up when she talks to them. They know she is a super mom and has taken them to hundreds of doctor’s appointments, spent countless nights in emergency rooms, and literally camped out in hospital ICU’s for days and nights on end. They know that and they say it in their smiles.
My sons have had almost 50 combined surgeries and procedures, some life threatening and lifesaving. This has amounted to months in the ICU. April vowed to never let them be alone in the hospital for a minute, ever! She has spent so many nights sitting next to their bedsides, reading to them, watching movies with them and sometimes they were critically ill and, on a ventilator, but April forged on.
She could not have done this without the help of my “other mother” April’s mom Bonnie Lynn. Bonnie was always at the hospital or ICU and spent countless nights relieving April or being there because April had to take care of which ever son was at home and not sick. Our “night nurse” Bonnie Lynn is the bomb.
I have to thank our nurses at home who take care of my sons around the clock and treat them like they were their sons. Again, all mothers are superheroes. I also have to thank all the doctors and nurses, who were moms that have provided excellent care for my sons at the hospitals. Special thanks to the wives of Dr. Jeff Haynes and Dr. David Lanning who have to be without their husbands so often because they are saving lives as Pediatric Surgeons at VCU. Thanks to Dr. Patty Mulreany our pediatrician for her special care.
I want to give a shout out to my aunt Mimi Comsia in Canton, Ohio who lived next door to us when I grew up and was a second mother to my family, as my mom was to hers. I love you Aunt Mimi, and I know your daughters will be with you today.
Mothers can never get enough respect, celebration, or accolades. They are the cement that bonds families and life. No one else can really do their job. They see and know things that the rest of us do not. It is a true honor to be a mother. So for my late mother, my wife April, my sisters Lisa and Marilyn, my mother in law Bonnie Lynn, my aunt Mimi, the mothers on my extended family, the mothers on my staff, every female teacher I have ever had and all my friends that are moms. This is your day. You are special, we love you, we don’t tell you that enough but since you possess superpowers, so I think you all know that we do!
April is such a good mother; she was even awarded with the honor of Christmas Mother for the Richmond Times Dispatch.