Dear Mother,

I am so grateful that I have you in my life. You are my best friend. Whenever I needed help you were there. Your example of happiness and ambition helped me be happy with my life. There are so many characteristics that I associate with you. Self-sacrificing, kind, giving, loving, strong, fun, happy, positive, creative, self-sustaining, knowledgeable, serviceable, hopeful, prayerful, humble. These are characteristics I also associate with Grandma, and I can see how well you learned from her example.

Now that I am about to become a mother, I hope that I can portray the same image to my children. I feel you are amazing and wonderful, and I want my children to know what a wonderful heritage they come from. I love you so very much.

Your daughter,
Carol H. Kane



Dear Mommy and Gramma

Happy Birthday. I'm glad that you're my mother, I wouldn't trad you for anyone else ever!! Thanks for being a great mother and Grandmother. We love you and appreciate everything that you do for us. I hope you enjoy the weather down there in sunny Arizona on your Birthday. We'll be braving the sub-zero temperatures up here (it was -15 degrees this morning!) Hope to see you soon and Happy Birthday!

Love
Kevin, Dana, and Suni


Dear Mom,

Happy Birthday from me and Shannon. We hop you have a good one and many more to come. We love you and dad so much. And we are so very thankful for everything that you do for us. I'm the luckiest guy in the world to have such great parents. Nobody is as lucky as I am. Mom I love you with all of my heart.

Happy Birthday!


Dearest Mother,

Happy Birthday!! I wanted to tell you in this letter that I am grateful every day that you are my Mom. I am trying to have our home be like the one I grew up in, it was a wonderful place to be, mostly because of you. For example, I sing to the girls and dance around like life is a musical, and keeping true to your form, I forget the words to the songs after about a line or two.

Even though I don't call you every 30 minutes, like Marianne or Janet, I think about you every day and I love you.

Your favorite child,
Neil


My dear dear Mother,
What a fun project this has been. I have laughed and cried and laughed and cried, as I have put these letters together. I don't have them all yet, I am missing Janet's still, but I wanted you to get this on your birthday. I have all the originals that I will send to you in a book. You can read them whenever you are home sick, and be reminded of just how much you are loved. Of course I'm sure Dad reminds you of that!

I just want to take a moment and tell you how much I love you. I feel very blessed to have had such an example as you growing up, and to still have that example as an adult. Not only that, but as Carol said, you are my best friend. And, Neil, if you are reading this, friends talk on the phone a lot, so get over it! I look so forward to our phone conversations. We talk as friends, but I also respect everything you say, and apply the advise you give to me in my daily life and in the lives of my children. I love you very much, mother, and if you haven't guessed by the time you have finished reading all of these letters, so does everyone else!

We all miss you and Dad, but at the same time, I'm excited for your adventure down south. And that is another thing I love about you. You take life as an adventure, and "what can I take out of this experience to better my life?" You are AWESOME and the people down there are lucky to have you around! Love you!!

Marianne