Today is Mother's Day and I'm sure most of us appreciate our moms.

I grew up in a deaf household, sort of.  My Grandmother lived with us and was totally deaf.  My mother learned sign language at an early age as both of her parents were deaf and all of the children were hearing.

 My mom was a Professor of Social Work at the NTID college of social work. She retired in 2005.

NTID is the National Technical Institute for the Deaf and is one of the colleges associated with Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT).

Last week my mom got a phone call from her old boss. While she was a professor, the department would get together once a month and have a brunch where they discussed various departmental stuff.  They were going to have another one and asked her to come. ( These were discontinued in 2006).

Apparently they were going to celebrate the promotion of one of their former students to the President's position of NTID.  He was a former student of my mom and graduated in 1998.

At the brunch, there were about 50 people all former students and colleagues, each stopped over and gave my mom a huge hug and told her how much she had changed their lives.  A presentation during the brunch featured my mom's smiling face more often than not, and the speech that was done with associated visual enhancement ( It was after all a significantly deaf audience) had several references to my mother's accomplishments and impact.

What a great day for her.  I always knew she was special but never realized the impact that she had on so many others until this experience. ( I was the transportation for her).

 Happy Mother's day.