Ten Days of Gratitude Day

Sigh, I wrote this last night but forgot to publish it.

Today I am grateful for my mom, Della. She is not my birth mother; she died when I was eleven. This mom is my mom by choice. She married my dad when I was 15 and before she did I asked her if she would mind if I called her Mom; she replied that she would be honored and that as far as she was concerned I was her child as much as her own 3 children. She has held fast to that statement and for that alone she deserves this post about her. Yet she has done so much more. I will mention a few to give you an idea, by no means will it be comprehensive. Firstly, she gave me a glimmer of light in my dark, dark life. By the time she came along I was readily deeply depressed and suicidal. She was not in a position to do much to help me, but her love gave me a slender thread of hope that carried me through the rest my time at home. Later when I was married and a mother, when she and my dad divorced; Della called me to tell me and to reassure me that she was by no means divorcing me. She has proven that over and over again. She rode 3 days on a bus from Missouri, several times to visit us in California. She wrote letters faithfully and when I was in a destructive relationship headed nowhere, she opened her home to me and my children to come and stay with her while we got back on our feet. We stayed with her 3 months short of 2 years. Since we have been here she has been my rock and I don't know what I would have done without her. When I gave up my car because I realized it just wasn't affordable; she has been wonderful to take me to doctor appointment, grocery shopping and more whenever she was able to do so. I am so glad Della chose me to be her daughter.