Nicole Tasker Woods

Every day that we are 3,000 miles apart, I think of my Mother. Four years ago, I left her at home in New Hampshire with my father and brothers When I moved to California to be with the man I would marry.

My body is in constant motion as I move through life and my mind moves just as fast while I work, clean, drive, exercise, or even lay still in bed waiting to dream. It is during these moments in my life that I lightly reflect on every childhood memory before that very day and how my Mother is in every single one…

How smooth and tan her skin was in the summertime from doing yard work on the weekends And how her hand would feel so soft as it wrapped around mine.

How she would lie next to me in bed if I could not sleep, and how she would fall asleep long before I ever could. How she would let me lick the spatula after frosting a cake and how her dinners and desserts lifted my spirits on the darkest of days.

She makes me hope…that I will be as good a mother to my own children as she was to me. She taught me so much about life: Some lessons explained verbally and others delivered without a word.

She showed me how to love my husband, just by loving my Daddy the way she did; she told me how to save money for those unexpected things in life; she got up everyday and cared for everyone, she taught me to work hard and never complain. She planned my wedding at Mill Falls in Meredith while I continued to work and live in L.A. And every event-planning-moment conveyed selflessness.

No one holds a candle to my Mother Diane. She is always smiling when she answers my phone calls and if I asked, she would do anything for me. She succeeds at being constantly positive and happy and loves so many so much. I am astonished she does not topple to the ground because of her satiated heart. The word I would use to describe her is not ‘special’ but closer to extraordinary and I believe the world should celebrate her everyday, as I do, in the way she deserves.