Everything that I am, and everything that I hope to be, I owe to my mother.
When I think back to my relationship with my mother, it is of course a complicated and fragile one in nature, but more than that it is the one where all my love lives.
There is no combination of letters in the alphabet that could possibly describe my mother in a way that would do her justice. Nor describe how grateful I am for her, and how indebted to her I am. But I will do my best.
Oftentimes, when people are asked about why they love someone, their response comes from a place of what that person does for them. “I love them because they make me laugh.” “They’re there for me when I need them.” “They make me feel good about myself.” This is especially true when we speak about our mothers. From the moment we’re conceived, our mothers are our givers.
We are submerged deep in the center of their bodies. Completely dependent. We take their nutrients, their energy and their time. Then, we enter the world, and we continue to take everything from them while they are unpaid and seldom recognized for all that they do—except for one day each year on the second Sunday of May.
It would be a lie if I said much of the love I have for my mother didn’t also stem from all she’s done and does for me. When someone is willing to change their entire life so that you can exist, it is the most selfless act, and I try every day to understand it. As I get older, I find myself thinking about how womanhood and motherhood are extremely difficult to balance. To be a mother is to sacrifice. Not only their bodies and their time, but their individuality and the “self.” And for this, I admire my mother, and mothers as an entirety.
As a daughter, I frequently find myself grappling with the overwhelming sense of being a burden. This feeling has always been there, in the recesses of my heart, and seemingly grows with age. I can see how it affects her sometimes—the never-ending pressure of being a mother. To love someone more than you love yourself. To be in a constant state of worry. To, at times, have a shadow cast over her happiness. I can see it when I’m hurt or sad, how she feels it so deeply, like it was her own. My mother would never admit to it because being a mother, as she says, is her greatest accomplishment. Nevertheless, I can’t help but have this intrusive thought: “In a dream I saw my mother with the love of her life and no children. It was the happiest I’d ever seen her.”
She has never once given me reason to believe any of this is true, but as I get older I feel like all I’ve done is taken from her, and that nothing I do will ever amount to what she has done for me. I will never be able to repay her for changing her life completely for me. I realize now, hindsight 20/20, that the only thing my mother is guilty of in this life, is caring too much. No one in this world will ever love me as much as she does, and of that I am convinced.
My mother is one of the smartest, most beautiful women I know, and also the strongest. She is an incredible friend. She is an incredible wife. She is an incredible sister. She is what makes a house, a home. She taught me unwavering love. She taught me honesty. That it was okay to make mistakes. And that my ponytails don’t always need to be bump-free.
With all that this life has thrown in her direction, she remains soft. She has kept her soul warm, and her heart kind. She is the safest space I know. And no matter what, she is always there to offer everyone else a little relief—and we all know what a little relief feels like in this scary world. It feels like a lot.
Everything that I am, and everything that I hope to be, I owe to my mother.