I open Instagram expecting overly-edited pictures of last night’s sunset, groups of girls posing pool-side, and artistically decorated desserts. The stars align, and my Wi-Fi slowly connects revealing, to my surprise, hundreds of consecutive throwbacks, candid smiles, and cliché "essays" all dedicated to the "heros who don't wear capes..."

Ugh. Father’s Day.

Welcome to the third Sunday of June … A day dedicated to cute bakery cupcakes decorated with frosted handle-bar mustaches, massive sales on overpriced grills and an abundance of khaki shorts paired with the legendary “man-dals.”

My eyes roll back as I quickly close the bustling app and swipe left to my photo gallery. His face hardly a memory, his words fading in my mind as my car sits a permanent resident on his side of the garage. I continue searching, yet 2,376 pictures and 42 videos later, all I can find is my beautiful mother’s face, joyful, smiling with an overflowing heart.

My mother.

The one who silenced her alarm as the sunrise crept over the horizon every morning to drive my brother and I to band an extra hour before the first bell of the day even rang.

The one who stayed up late and managed through thousands of brutal marathon-like days to cook dinner, supervise homework and extensive, unreasonable, take-home projects.

The one who wiped my eyes full of tears as I messy cried on the shoulder of her familiar shirts as she pieced back together every broken heart with her beautiful words.

The one whose face shone brightly above the crowd at all my concerts. Her voice echoing through the stands as she cheered to her babies taking the field in preliminary performance at each marching band competition, whether it be down the street at a school a town over, or down the highway a state or two a state over.

My mother.

Although you might not have a beard or the coveted “mandals,” you have terrible “dad jokes” and so much more. Mom. You have an irreplaceable, unyielding strength I can only hope to reflect. You show so much love and compassion to absolutely everyone you meet. You welcome everyone with a genuine, open heart and give everything you have to the world.

You might have given me your tiny stature, but you are nothing short of the person I aspire to be. And even though you’re currently yelling ... I take that back, screaming at me from downstairs to take out the garbage, I couldn’t be more thankful to hear your voice every day and have you just a room away.

You took an atrocious mess of a heart-breaking situation and completely flipped it. Even when all you wanted was a moment to breathe, you took all of your energy and absolutely everything you had to make my childhood beautiful, fun, and almost "normal." And for that, I’ll never be able to thank you enough.

Mom, Happy Father’s Day, and thank you for everything you do. From taking us fishing to grilling some mean-ass burgers, and teaching us tools and home maintenance, I’d say you make not only a wonderful mother, but a more than satisfactory father as well.

You are my sunshine and I love you more than you’ll ever know.

-Buggy