San Diego's 50 Best Moms 2010

The power of a mother's love is immeasurable; it knows no boundaries and is truly limitless.

I have once again confirmed this not because I am a mother myself, but because I had the honor of being in the presence of Time Warner Cable San Diego's 50 Best Moms and finding out what makes them worthy of having this title bestowed on them.

Humbled, and at times reaching for the tissues on the table to wipe some tears, we listened to excerpts from their children's essays selected by Time Warner Cable and a panel of 24 judges to be deserving of this cherished award.

Retired Juvenile Court Judge Maria Arroyo and Tiffany Lynch of Time Warner Cable's Community Relations

Among the judges this year were Maria Arroyo, retired Juvenile Court Judge, Marti Emerald, Councilmember for the City of San Diego, Jodi Kodesh reporter at NBC 7/39 and Lesa Heebner, Deputy Mayor of City of Solana Beach, and yours truly (see the 2010 list of judges here).

Essay judges Suzette Valle Best Mom 2006 and Jodi Kodesh NBC 7/30

Over 3,500 essays from San Diego County schools were submitted this year, and after reading my lot and listening to the chosen ones, I feel we are lucky to have some extremely dedicated mothers and active community-conscious citizens who are instilling the value of 'giving back' and 'paying it forward' to their kids; and sometimes to others beyond their own family.

Mrs. Shari Hume is one such mother. Her son was diagnosed with a rare life-threatening disease, Juvenile Dermatomyositis (JM), for which there is no known cure. She did not take his diagnosis sitting down; instead she helped raise over $2 million dollars towards the research, and hopefully, discovery of a cure for Parker Hume's illness.

Sally Grab Bidleman adopted Cricket Bidleman, a 5th grader, who wrote: 

“I am a blind eleven year old girl and I believe, with all my heart that my mother is the best in the whole of San Diego County. She has made many sacrifices, and she is an exemplary role model. She adopted my sister and me from China. For this, I will forever be grateful, because if my mom hadn’t adopted us, we may not have had the chance to get a good education. In fact, we may not have been able to get an education at all! My mom has made many sacrifices for me. She had already adopted my sister, and she found out from the agency that there was another child available for adoption. The agency said that I was blind from birth and that I was almost four years old. Mom immediately said yes. Most mothers would not have done what my mother has done for me.”

Ashley Queja, a teenager, has been raising her younger sister Sydnee, who is now in middle school, since the age of 5 after their mother passed away.

Sometimes, when life seems to be squeezing a little too hard and I feel I'm about to choke, it will help me to breathe a little easier knowing others are gripped by even worse problems than my own and overcome them.  At times like these, I will re-read these stories of courage and adversity and use them as inspiration to deal with my own, comparatively insignificant problems, and forge ahead.

Time Warner Cable's 50 Best Moms winners, I again tip my hat to you and thank you for inspiring your children (and mine) to be the best they can be.

But, more importantly, for inspiring us mothers to be our children's role models no matter what.  

<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” />