Maybe your calendar is old school, hanging on a wall. Maybe yours resides on your smart-phone. Wherever or whatever yours is, mark it, because Sunday, May 14th, is Mother’s Day. And whether you dearly love your mom, barely tolerate her, or some combination of the two, you need to sayThank you!You don’t have to say more than that, but you need to at least sayThank you!

The reason behind communicating this phrase of gratitude is simple: she got you here. Your mother carried you around inside her belly for, if things went full term, nine long months. Now she may have been the poster-girl of health during that time, running a couple of marathons, canning shelf upon shelf of vegetables, and constructing a gazebo in the backyard. But more than likely she was some version of sick and tired. And if she was fortunate enough not to be sick, make no mistake, she was tired.   

At the conclusion of those months of pregnancy, she had the moment of “it’s time.” Maybe this moment had all the drama of a hiccup, and then again maybe her water broke as she pushed a shopping cart full of groceries with a stack of coupons in one hand and your older bonehead brother in the other. Fast forward a bit to a hospital setting (usually) where she resigned herself to the stirrups and a roomful of people with an eyeful of “down there.” It is possible she had another hiccup andviola! out you popped. It is also possible she pushed for upwards of ten hours, almost losing consciousness, and the doc finally said, “Get the Hoover,” and he got a grip on your head and essentially sucked you out of “down there.” Other possible scenarios include emergency C-sections or other “emergency” measures scaring the holy hell out of her and worrying the folks in the waiting room something fierce.

But she got you here.

Now after that, every man’s story of “mother” is different. They range from the sublime to the ridiculous to the downright shameful. You may live in the same town and visit her every Saturday night. Or you may call her at Christmas or Easter, but not both. Or you may never know quite what you feel about your mother, so you play the game of get-close-then-avoid-then-get-close-then-avoid-then...

Every once in a while there’ll be a man like Johnny Ringo fromTombstone: he just wants revenge for being born. But the rest of us, in our saner moments, are thankful to have been given the chance to go fishing and date girls and attend Kings of Leon concerts and buy cool stuff from Buffalo Jackson – chances that would have never been possible without us being here in the first place. And mom got us here.

So while you can, tell herThank you!We’re only here for a short time.