Pigs are flying, the curvaceous lady is singing her tune, the cows are back home cracking open their beer...

For the second time this week, I have just had a completely pleasant conversation with my mother including much talk about the wedding. Holy crapola. I think she must be making a special, cognizant effort to be nice to me, especially about the wedding stuff. She's asking questions about it. She's joking with me about it. She's offering to learn how to emboss paper so she can help make our invitations. She's saying she'd like to give us some money for it, but can't make promises because she and my Dad don't have much left over these days. I tell her anything they'd like to offer would be much appreciated and if they can't contribute cash that's completely ok and then we talk about bridesmaids dresses. She asked what we're going to do with our last names and I even brought up having kids without incident.

I really love this stuff (and I'm hoping it won't come crashing down in some big fight). She and I have had such a bumpy road of it since I came out to her, several years of really bad periods followed by periods of two-steps-forward-one-step-back stuff, so I'm trying to appreciate this without setting my heart on it. I love my mother. I feel sorry that she has had to go through so much turmoil and inner change because she happened to be one of the many parents of gay children. I admire the strength of this remarkable woman and so deeply appreciate the efforts she makes for me- I know I haven't been the easiest daughter in the world. She turns 60 next month and I know I want to spend as much time as possible soaking up her love and reflecting it right back to her while we're still together; when I was 9 years old, I realized one night while trying to fall asleep, for the first time, that my mother wouldn't live forever and I cried into the wee hours of the morning until finally going to sleep. That's a feeling that has stayed with me since that night and so often I have to push my thoughts about that finiteness away in order not to cry some more. I love my mother so much more than I could ever express. Now, as I think about becoming a mom myself (and I think about that all the time), I can't imagine another person loving me like I love my mother, but at the same time I really hope they do.