Today is Mum’s birthday.

Mum is an amazing woman. Wherever she sees a breach, she steps into it. When my Brownie troop needed a new leader, she stepped up and took on a group of first-graders. By the time we hit third grade our troop had grown from six or so girls to about forty and Mum had to recruit a number of other moms as assistants.

She also is an inspiration, going down to Washington without knowing anyone other than my dad and volunteering for the Clinton inauguration committee. She turned that opportunity into an eight-year volunteer gig as well as a full-time paying job (actually, a couple of them). She met a ton of famous people and got to witness a number of cool moments at the White House and at the Vice President’s house, in addition to making a lifetime’s worth of memories.

Mum doesn’t see that this as remotely extraordinary, but the rest of us know how very much it is. We lack her organization and her chutzpah and her ability to throw herself into a task fully.

And when she’s not serving as a role model to the rest of us, she’s busy belting out the tunes, coaxing sun-loving plants to grow in the shade, planning her next deck-building project, and keeping us all afloat, no matter how far away we’ve swum.

Happy birthday, Mum! It was nice to celebrate with you!