Mom,

Troubled no doubt has our journey together been.  For whatever reason, the strangest happened.  But now I make an oasis in the field outside of your prison because though time marches on like a pencil without eraser, I know that you always have loved, and always will love your son who writes of you now.  The turbulence of your fall from the world of yesterday into your caged world of today shook me from ignorance and complacency.  You taught me, albeit the hard way, that the lessons and the tools to become something great in life come in a box bristling with hardship and trial.  Surely nothing worth having comes easy.  Though I’ve absorbed the wealth of your disguised gifts while you declined from proud mountain to shattered canyon, I am sorry that I hadn’t realized your hidden depth for so long.  For not until today have I known the cool creek of support and wisdom that still flows beneath it all.  I came through stronger for every sacrifice you ever made.  And your life will not have been in vain.  Thank you, I love you. 

Still Your Little Buddy,

Joe