With Mother’s Day coming up this weekend, I’ve been reflecting a lot this week on my mom and what an important and essential part of our family she is.

I believe I’ve said this before, but the older I get, the more I truly appreciate my parents and the role they have played and continue to play in my life.

And being in my line of work and seeing all the people out there who don’t take their role as a mother seriously makes me appreciate even more that I had a mother who took her role as seriously as anyone ever has.

Teresa Seal isn’t someone who is the first person to be noticed when you walk in a room.

She’s generally quiet and reserved, which makes her blend in more than someone like me or my dad who would talk to fence posts if we thought they would listen.

But those who know my mom know that behind her reserved exterior lies a woman who is kind, compassionate, caring and actually really funny.

She has a beautiful singing voice and a big enough heart that she sometimes gets emotional at commercials (just like me).

In addition to all that, she also happens to be the best mother around, and she’s the role model for the kind of mother I hope to be one day.

My mother invested more time and energy into my brother and me than I could ever try to estimate.

She was constantly going and doing for the two of us and rarely ever did she do things for herself.

When my brother and I were growing up, we watched episodes of “Sesame Street” and “Reading Rainbow” because my mom wanted us to be educated as well as entertained.

We read tons of books and my mom took us to the library so we could understand the true value of the written word.

We ate dinner as a family around the table because my mom understood the importance of family.

We never went without anything we needed (and most of the time wanted) because my mom wanted us to have the best we could have.

We never missed a school project or went without a permission slip if my mom knew about it because she was always organizing and making sure we were taken care of.

We never had to be scared during the night because we knew all we had to do was yell “MOM!” and she would be there in about 10 seconds.

I honestly don’t know how she did it. Not having any children of my own, I don’t know how she sacrificed so much for the two of us and still loved us anyway! How she got up every morning and dedicated 99 percent of the day to doing something for someone else is just a mystery to me.

One of these days I’ll hopefully know what it’s like to be a mom, and I know exactly who I’ll come to when I don’t know what to do (which I have a feeling will be quite often).

I am so lucky to have a mom like her and I realize it more and more everyday.

I saw this quote floating around on the Internet this week and thought it was very true of how I feel:

“Growing up we never had the best house on the block, the best car, or the most money, but one thing I had that no one else had was the best mother.

Looking back, I guess I was the richest kid in my neighborhood after all.”