“My mother has watched me walk through fire more times than any parent should have to. Through addiction and the long road to sobriety, through a cancer diagnosis that shook me, through raising two special needs boys while pursuing graduate school, she never wavered. She never flinched. She just kept showing up, cheering louder than anyone in the room, loving me before I knew how to love myself. She didn’t just believe I could do hard things. She made me believe it, too. Everything I am becoming, I owe, in large part, to her steady, relentless faith in me.”
— Ashley P. in Canfield, Ohio
“At 5 feet, 2 inches tall, my mother looked up at everyone, but never backed down from anybody. The fifth child of a traveling salesman, survivor of the Great Depression, Bette was tough. When I struggled to write with my right hand, she boldly confronted my teacher and principal (both men), ‘If the boy wants to use his left hand, let him.’ Bette dispensed decades of counseling as a ‘beautician’ with honest compassion. My senior year of high school she encouraged me, her last baby, to follow my dreams, ‘Go explore the world and love your life.’ Truly, the greatest woman I’ve ever known.”
— Wendell L. in Ventura, California
“One of my childhood memories of my mother’s love and patience was of me getting angry with my mother and throwing every insult and ‘I would leave this family when I could’ at her, only to be calmly replied to with ‘And I’ll love you anyways.’ I remember it stopping my argument so hard that I could not reply, due largely to the fact I could not deny it was true. She feels that for all nine of her children.”
— Stephen K. in Provo, Utah
