just to get the ball rolling . . .

Dear Mother,

I have not met you and yet I already admire and respect you immensely based on solely your son's recounting of your life and personality.

It is difficult to produce a lovable man, I would imagine. It is hard enough to grab one who is already part-grown and try to shape something decent out of him, let alone mold one properly from the ground up amidst the chaos of your own life. But you, somehow, have done it. Of course, he is only half-grown himself, still flawed and awkward and headstrong, but learning fiercely, and only getting better.

I know that, as time goes by, whether he and I stay together or split apart, and whether he breaks my heart or I his, he will continue to be a good man for the rest of his life, steadily improving himself and those around him. I know that this is true because, despite his sometimes thick head, he has the most important quality a man can have, one that is invariably the result of an extraordinary mother -- an open heart.

Maybe, when we finally do meet, we won't even like each other. But even if we become the kind of domestic in-laws who spit drunken insults at each other over every Thanksgiving dinner, we will always have this one thing in common: a beautiful boy that we love the best that we can, with all that we've got, each in our own way.

Because you are his mother, I know full well that I will never be able to love him as much as you do. But I hope you take it as a comfort, and not a challenge, that I am damn well going to try.

-Girlfriend

P.S. Of course, your influence might also be the source of those personality traits of his that I would rather do without, but, if you prefer, we can agree to blame those on his father.