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If you are like me and have lost your mother � I lost my mom in 2009 � Mother’s Day is a bittersweet holiday. I was very close to my mom, a nurse and hospice nurse, whose life was spent nurturing others. She was smart and headstrong but also incredibly funny and sweet. My brother died at the age of 17, when I was just 13, and somehow my mom � despite her overwhelming sorrow � never wavered in her love or support for me. In the worst tragedy we would ever face as a family, my mom was a pillar of strength, faith, resilience and hope. That’s one of many reasons I used to spoil her. I used to call her on my birthday and yell, “Happy Birthday!� because I felt it was really more her day than mine (I mean, our birthdays are really our mother’s birthdays, right?). And on Mother’s Day, I used to shower her with gifts: Hummingbird feeders, flowers and plants for her gardens, jewelry and clothes. I presented her with trips to Ireland and beloved St. Louis Cardinals games, but mostly, I gifted her books. My mom was a voracious reader, and she � and my grandmas � made me one as well. My mom read everything: Fiction, memoir, thrillers, dense studies of ancient religions and political figures. But all of us loved Erma Bombeck. My novels are inspired by my grandmothers� and family’s heirlooms as well as their lives, love and lessons. Along with charm bracelets, recipe boxes, quilts, dishes and flowers, books are a part of our family’s heirlooms. After my grandmas passed, my mom inherited all of their books. After my mom passed, I became the keeper of those precious treasures. Many of those books are underlined or highlighted. My Grandma Rouse wrote comments and thoughts in the margins. There are coffee circles left on pages left by my mom where she would hold a book open with her cup. When I am feeling down or alone, I pick up one of their beloved books � Erma Bombeck, James Michener, the family Bible, even an old Betty Crocker cookbook � and read. And I feel as if they are still with me. Erma Bombeck wrote famously on Mother’s Day, “I can think of no mothers who deserve [a wonderful Mother’s Day] more than those who had to give a child back.� My mom and brother are now reunited. And on Mother’s Day, although she is no longer with me, I’ll pick up Erma, and laugh, and cry, and celebrate all of the mothers whose fierce devotion to and undying love for their children never dies. Happy Mother’s Day!