With Mother’s Day quickly approaching, most people reflect on their own mothers and even their childhood. I’m no exception.

The first nine years of my life I was an only child to a single parent. My mom, Denise Adkins, was much more to me than just a mother. She was my world. If I needed someone to talk to, I could go to her and talk without the fear of her passing judgement, or getting upset with me. If anything was hurting me, or bothering me, I could go to her. Even when I wasn’t able to talk to her because I was crying so hard, she never pushed me to tell her what was wrong, she’d just hold me, and play with my hair and tell me ‘Everything’s going to be alright.’

When I was 8, my mother married my step-father, Scott. Soon after that my little sister, Kassidy, and my brother, Jeremy, came along. I was excited, because I now had siblings I could pick on and goof off with and a dad, who sometimes can be a big kid but can also be quite serious. Growing up in such a full household I felt outnumbered. I was the only one with a different last name. I was the weird one, for lack of a better term. Sometimes it seemed that all of this hit me at once.

While in my teenage years I didn’t talk to mom as much as I used to when I was younger because of all the new things I was dealing with. Her love for me, or any of us, never changed in anyway. It seemed like her heart just grew that much bigger to accommodate each of us. The older I got the more I realized that friends come and go. Whether I changed, or they changed, it happened. My mom was always a constant. I’ve found as I’ve gotten older I can go to her with whatever my problem, serious or even just joking, and she either welcomes it with an open mind as always, or just deals with my particular sense of humor.

Now that I’m married and a step-mother, this Mother’s Day will be the first that I will experience as a mom. As my step-son, Killian, is growing up, I can only pray that I will be the same open-minded and loving mother that my mom was for me. A mother, or mine at least, is not only supportive of her children’s choices, but understands mistakes happen and is always there to dust you off and help you try again.

I have found that Mother’s Day isn’t just a day to buy your mom gifts or even spend money. It’s one day out of the year to reflect on and appreciate the woman that’s always there for you every other day of the year, in my case, all 9,979 of them. Not all of them are easy, not all are difficult. No matter what the day, mothers are always there for us. Thank you mom, for all your love and support the past 27 years, I only hope in that time I’ve made you at least a little proud of the woman I’ve become. I love you.

Sarah Welch is a paginator with The Mount Airy News. She can be reached at swelch@heartlandpublications.com or at 719-1935.