Today is my mother's birthday, which means that it is also the birthday of my possibility. I could want no other mother; I have never even liked another mother the way I like my own mother. She is the fiercest and loveliest of women, the best and most beautiful. She smells like joy and laughs merriment like brightened windowpanes. She put the feather pillows under my cheek and pulled the hot triangles and bright flower gardens and flannel stars over my shoulders. She put the love of red in my veins. She is the epitome of vivacity. Had she not consistently been her inimitable, tenacious self through my life, I would be a pale shadow of what I am. She set the bar high, and she set me reaching.

Happy birthday, Mama. I love you.