Dear Mom,

Happy Mothers' Day! It's a funny thing trying to come up with something to do or say for Mothers' Day, because any kind of gift with wrapping paper and a bow won't do the sentiment justice, even if there is a brick of fudge inside. Everything good that I have, am, or ever will be, I owe mostly to you. There were good scout leaders, and teachers, and coaches, and friends, and even siblings, and Dad for that matter, but all of their efforts wouldn't have meant much without you. You did all of their jobs and more for me, from even before I was born. If I ever need to know how to clean something up, or cook something good, or cure any ailment, I know who to ask. You've done a pretty amazing thing, Mom, and the proof is in your children. I hope the grand kids know what an amazing Grandma they have.
So thanks for everything, I'm enjoying my life and getting a lot out of it. You made that happen. I love you.
Your grateful son,
Austin

P.S. You always hear the downfall of electronic communication is how impersonal it makes things, how a hand written card is much more meaningful than an email. What you might not hear as often is when you blog from your phone, and it has a hard time running the script on a big web page, you might not notice that it never loaded the "publish" or "save draft" buttons on blogger, and your Mothers' Day post gets lost the the virtual void. Then you have to retype the post from Mom and Dad's computer. That's another less known downfall of electronic communication.