So there I was, standing in front of my wardrobe, picking through my outfits, running my fingers through them gently, turning them over, and checking for creases.
And suddenly, it hit me. This is exactly how a mom always does it. Was I doing the same thing? Yes. But it wasn’t conscious, nor intentional, just organic, like muscle memory I never trained for.
There was something quietly humbling in that moment, realizing you’re slowly becoming the woman who raised you. She lives on in our hands, our habits, our instincts… and yet, how little do we truly know about her?
But We Only Ever Know Her As Our Mother
Here is the thing about mothers: we see them only as a mother.
We know the version of her who was already there when we arrived- the one who worries, scolds, and expresses love all at the same time.
We see her as the woman who anchors the family, who holds it all together, who is somehow always ahead of everyone else’s needs.
But we rarely pause to ask: who were you before us?
What did you dream about at twenty-two? What kind of music did you love? What parts of yourself did you carry forward? And what did you quietly set aside?
You had a whole life before we became the center of yours and we have never got to know it fully.
Motherhood Doesn’t Erase Identity
Being a mother just adds another layer. Somewhere beneath the routine, laughter and sacrifices is a woman with a past full of her own firsts, a woman with her own heartbreaks, her own becoming.
And that woman did not disappear. She’s still there, in the opinions she holds, in the things that make her laugh, in the way she lights up when someone asks about something she once loved.
We’re so accustomed to seeing you as a constant, ever-available presence that we forget you’re a person in motion, still carrying your own questions, still, at times, probably missing who you used to be.
This Mother’s Day
And this Mother’s Day, the most meaningful thing we can do is get curious about that woman, ask her something we’ve never asked her before, and let her be more than our mother for a moment, because she was someone before she became ours.
So here’s to all of them- the mothers in traditional homes, the ones doing it alone, the fathers who stepped in and held both roles, the grandparents who came back around, the siblings and aunts and elders who quietly showed up, anyone who ever chose again and again to put someone else’s world before their own.
They didn’t just raise us, they shaped us. And that’s worth more than just one day, but we all have to start somewhere.
