The Origins Of A Cardboard Addict:Happy Mother's Day

It's Mother's Day. The day we celebrate all of the Moms of the world for all of their hard work in our lives.

It has taken me many years to realize that a Mom doesn't have to be just someone who birthed you. There can be other forms of Moms that have no bloodline to you such is the case growing up for me with my friend Brian's Mom or as I call her, Mom.

When Brian's father didn't want friends over, she would sneak me over. When she knew I needed a break from my own family to keep some sanity, she would take me on a quick shopping trip. When I needed a ride to football practice when my father was working she was there. When I needed someone to talk to, she was there and still is today. She checks up on me when I am sick. Is the first one who texts me Happy Birthday, Happy Easter, etc. And she has provided me some of my youth photos on here as my parents didn't take many and she did. If this doesn't make her a Mom, then I don't know what a Mom is.

Then of course there is my mother in law who buys me cards, will occasionally grab me some lunch when my wife is at work and is always willing to help run errands when we are busy. Once again, a Mom.

When it comes to my birth mother or known as my Mom, we were close when I was growing up but not so much today. She honestly is a bit of an odd duck, but she is still my mother and I still love her.

And every time I come across an Emmitt Smith card, I think of her and the memories attached. Mostly of her dancing around the room when Emmitt used to kill the Giants by himself when they faced each other. Those were some long afternoons and some crazy Monday Night football blowouts.

 

She has always been a huge Cowboys fan and still is. I am glad I didn't follow her sports interests. One of her favorite players on the Cowboys has always been Emmitt Smith. It was the love of her life at the time.So when my father and I would find his cards in packs, she sniffed them out and wanted them. It kind of made her become an offset collector even though she despised collecting overall as I have stated on here many times. But, my father and I took advantage of her love of Emmitt as an opening for us to occasionally be able to purchase cards in front of her and not always behind her back without her "consent".

I think she had up to 100 different Emmitt cards before I moved out and believe she held on to many of them up until recently when she handed them all back to my father as her interests were more towards horse figurines now.

I kind of wished I had some of them back. Especially the ones I remember using to "bribe" her with to get other cards. One at the time even had a Beckett book value of $25 which was a lot back then but I think I was able to go to a card show because of it  so it was a good trade off.

So as I type this today, I am thinking about her and not just with cards either. She was the one who got me my first Darkwing Duck toy. She was the one who would make me fried eggs,potatoes and coffee (something I probably shouldn't have had at age 7 but did) for breakfast at 4am while my father was farming and we would just sit and play a game of war. She always made sure I had something for supper even though I grew up with the eat what's on your plate or get nothing deal. And I remember watching all of the horror movies, Ernest movies and some afternoon cartoons when I got home from school. I treasure all of those moments and it makes me forget about the not so great ones.

To all of my Moms today, Happy Mothers Day. I also wanted to take a minute out to say Happy Mother's Day to all of the Moms out there who are reading this. Not just the birth moms but the oneswho are moms to others.