For my mother, who did a pretty great job raising three children on her own and we all ended up somewhat decent. I love you.

To all single parents:

Thank you. You are amazing. All parents are, but single parents do double the amount of work than they are supposed to. Parenting is the most difficult and most valuable job in the world. Its a 24 hour, 7 days a week job that you work for the rest of your life. It's a lifetime full of effort and that's why it requires two people. But, what happens when one of those people leaves and you're forced to conquer the world's most difficult job on your own? Parenting is already hard enough. You have to raise and take care of another human being and you have to put someone else's life before your own. How you are able to do that on your own is astonishing and deserves the greatest and highest recognition. Because of all of your hard work, you are the ultimate role models.

Thank you for providing me with a great life with only one income. You work, you run the house, you cook, you clean and you still manage to raise us kids. I can barely balance college and a social life, so how you can manage to do all of that is amazing.

Thank you for showing me that I am good enough. There will always be "whys" and "what ifs" about my absent parent but because of the extra amount of love you've given me, I feel more than good enough as a person.

Thank you for showing me what teamwork is even though your teammate isn't here. Teamwork is grocery shopping with all of us kids because there's not another parent to watch us while you go. With one key family member out of the picture, every other member has to work that much harder to fill that void and it teaches us how to work together.

Thank you for teaching me that hard work reaps benefits. Parenting is already hard work, but single parenting is double the difficulty. You put so much work into being a parent and because of that, I turned out pretty great. You have taught me that I can make anything happen if I put the work into it.

Thank you for teaching me to follow my dreams and that I can do anything that I want to. You have shown me that if you can conquer the world's most difficult job on your own that I can do anything I set my mind to.

Thank you for teaching me independence. Because of you, I want to be successful on my own. I don't want to rely on anyone for anything because I know I can achieve what I want by myself.

Thank you for teaching me how to love. Throughout your difficulties, you still managed to put your entire heart into raising me and because of that, I know to love with my whole heart even during my darkest times.

Thank you for showing me that I didn't need another parent. Thank you for being both parents despite there only being one of you. Thank you for everything.