A Letter on the Mothers Who Shape Us
My Dearest Friend,
I think one of the strangest parts of growing older is realizing how often you begin to recognize your mother within yourself—not all at once, and not in dramatic moments...but quietly.
In the way you fold towels. In the phrases that leave your mouth before you even realize they are hers. In the instinct to reach for a child before they fully wake from a bad dream. In the exhaustion you once overlooked and now understand intimately.
As children, I think many of us only see fragments of motherhood at a time. We notice the things closest to us—the rides to school, the reminders shouted from another room, the groceries that somehow stayed stocked, the bills paid, the late nights we were too young to fully understand. We do not yet know how to recognize the invisible architecture holding a life together.
Only later do we begin to understand how much was being carried quietly in the background, and perhaps that is what Mother’s Day makes me reflect on most—not perfection, nor grand gestures, nor the polished version of motherhood we are so often shown in media, but the quiet, steady act of caring for other people day after day in ways both small and life-changing.
I think of my own mother first. I think of the ways I continue discovering her inside myself as I grow older—not as a perfect figure preserved in memory, but as a real woman who carried a household, a marriage, children, responsibilities, exhaustion, and love all at once. So much of what she gave lived quietly beneath the surface of everyday life, invisible to me then in ways I only understand now.
And I think of my grandmother, whose presence still feels woven through so many of my memories of care and steadiness. Some people leave behind recipes or heirlooms; others leave behind the feeling of being deeply safe and deeply loved. She gave me that.
I think of my sister, too, who became a mother before I did. Our children arrived close enough together that we learned so much of motherhood side by side, walking through those early years together in real time. There was comfort in watching someone I loved navigate the unknown just ahead of me, in being able to call and ask questions, compare worries, laugh about the absurd parts, and admit honestly when motherhood felt harder than we expected.
And then, beyond them, I think of the many women who entered my life for a season and still left their fingerprints on the kind of mother I am becoming.
The women who answered late-night questions without judgment. The ones who reassured me through difficult stages, who sat beside me in exhaustion, who shared their own stories honestly enough to make me feel less alone inside mine. The mothers who showed me grace in grocery store aisles, at library story times, across kitchen tables, in military housing neighborhoods, and through fleeting friendships formed in seasons of transition.
I think one of the great gifts of motherhood is that we are so rarely shaped by only one woman. Instead, we gather pieces of wisdom from one another over time...A little tenderness here, a little patience there, a reminder that perfection was never the goal.
And slowly, almost without realizing it, we begin building our own version of motherhood from all the women who helped carry us toward it.
And now, as a mother myself, I find there are moments when I suddenly understand things I never could before: the depth of worry, the fierceness of love, the strange ache of watching your children grow even while you are excited to see who they are becoming.
Motherhood, I think, is so often built from contradictions. It is exhausting and beautiful, ordinary and sacred, tender and relentless.
And still, somehow, mothers continue showing up.
So today, whether you are celebrating a mother, grieving one, becoming one, longing to be one, or simply reflecting on the women who helped shape your life, I hope this day leaves space for honesty as much as celebration.
Because the love that shapes us most deeply is rarely loud. More often, it is built quietly across thousands of ordinary days—and perhaps that is what makes it endure.
