Why My Mother is SUPERMOM
I just wanted to take a moment to brag about my mom because I am SO proud of her!
Her retirement party is tonight and her ceremony on base is tomorrow afternoon~ and I can tell that she is feeling a little crazy with her butt busting career winding down to an end.
She is retiring as an E8 Senior Master Sgt. and administrator of the 507th Tech Medical Squad at Tinker Air Force Base this weekend after 36 years of service~ whew!
I am so incredibly proud of my mother and for all that she has accomplished- she has truly been my role model and inspiration. I admire her more than words can express and I only hope that I can be half the success she has been both as a professional and wife/mother. She is the
most respectable woman I have ever known and I love her so much I just want to cry!
She works harder than anyone I've ever known~ both as a professional woman and a mother.
Moving here in the 60's from Okinawa, she came to America as an 11-year old girl who barely spoke a word of English-in a time where being a minority woman in this country offered little opportunity to be more than just a housewife.
She joined the military right out of high school at 18 years old so that could see the world, working/living in amazing places across the globe from Japan to Germany before meeting my dad, getting married and having my brother and I (me in Germany, Chris on base in Arkansas).
That was 10 years as a professional woman before starting a family and settling down.
She was also the FIRST single woman to be stationed at Webb AF down in Texas~ that is HUGE!
My entire life, I have watched my mother work 50+ hours a week~ working 14 days straight without a day off once and sometimes TWICE a month for UTA weekends (unit training activities), and after all of these long days and hours, she would STILL come home from work and have a hot home cooked meal on the table for her family EVERY NIGHT. She is so tiny and sweet, but she is also an incredibly intelligent, tough little cookie.
As an administrator and boss lady, I know that she has had to deal with some lazy, pain in the ass employees over the years, and then she would come home and deal with me and my brother (who were, for a time as teenagers, also pains in the asses and lazy)...and when I think of this on top of everything I wonder how she hasn't lost her mind. In spite of the overwhelming amount of responsibility she manages each and every day, she's still the most stable person on the planet and that amazes me.
I can't count the nights my brother and I would have to pull her black combat boots off her feet as she lay passed out on the couch, still in her uniform, after a hard days work and cooking for us. So many nights of pleading with her to wake up just long enough to take her contacts out and go sleep in her bed because it was more comfortable (and I always believed that she stayed glued to the couch to sleep so that she was at least there with us in the living room while we were watching tv).
She takes care of my father and loves him so unconditionally~ I know that he would be lost without her. Every night since I was little kid I watched my mom spend extra time in the kitchen to make/pack my dad leftovers of dinner (or something new entirely)
to ensure that he had a good lunch to take to work the next day.
As the one in charge of the books at home, she also spends hours taking care of the family finances...burning the midnight oil at the kitchen table, wearing her glasses, surrounded by paperwork, bills and envelopes, hacking away at the calculator.
She is my hero. She is my family's rock and anchor. She has shown me that I can be anyone I want to be and do anything I want to pursue successfully. She's shown me the value of hard work and perseverance. She has shown me that a woman can have a career and be independent and strong and STILL be an attentive wife and mother.
My mom is the posterwoman for SUPERMOM: to ME, she embodies all that I respect in a woman...she is a self-made professional woman who has madea name for herself while simultaneously nurturing and caring for her family...and we just love her.
I am so excited for her to be retired and have time to BREATHE and RELAX and have free time...she deserves it more than I anyone I know.
She doesn't even know what she is going to do with all of her free time~ I don't think she has ever really had time to herself to have any free time. Knowing her, she will find plenty of things to keep her busy because the woman can not sit still unless she is passed out from exhaustion. It's just the way she works.
I am so excited to finally get her to myself and not have to share her with her career anymore. I feel as if I've spent the majority of my life missing her while she has been at work, and now she's finally FREE!
I am twenty seven years old, but the idea of having more time to spend with my always busy mother just thrills me and makes me feel like a little girl again...I want to jump up and down and do cartwheels across the lawn.I can't wait to start spending more quality time with her.
I am so proud to say that my mother has served our fine country- being one of the well oiled gears in our amazing military that makes this country work and provides the freedoms and liberty we have today.
