Happy Mother’s Day to Me

Every year,

I stitched gold around this holiday—

wrapped bouquets around bruises,

poured honey into the mouth

of the woman who taught me

love could taste like abandonment.

Thirty-four years

of kneeling at an altar

that never wanted me there.

We haven’t spoken since October.

Still, this morning bloomed

with messages—

Happy Mother’s Day.

Strange thing to hear

when your motherhood

exists only in ghosts:

a miscarriage buried quietly,

two dogs curled against the ache,

an empty room that still echoes

like a nursery never touched by light.

But maybe motherhood

was never about blood alone.

Maybe it began

when I was five years old,

learning how to survive

inside a house that forgot my name.

Maybe it sharpened at ten,

when my mother disappeared into her bed

like a coffin with blankets,

and my little brother—five years old,

all wide eyes and hunger—

became mine to raise.

I was a child

playing parent

with shaking hands.

Later, at nineteen,

I signed papers heavy as tombstones

and took full custody of him.

No applause.

No medals.

Just survival dressed in silence.

So Happy Mother’s Day to me—

for raising myself

while still losing pieces of myself

in the process.

For mothering a brother

when I still needed one of my own.

For bleeding through grief alone,

holding my own body afterward

like a widow holds ash.

For loving friends

who devoured me whole—

friends who borrowed my light

then crawled into my first husband’s bed,

helping burn down the home

I built with my bare hands.

I have mothered everyone:

the broken,

the selfish,

the starving,

the men who mistook softness for weakness.

And still—

I remained tender.

So Happy Mother’s Day

to the women who became my shelter.

To the actual friends who held me gently

instead of trying to hollow me out.

To my dogs,

my loyal little wolves,

my living proof that love can stay.

To the women with empty arms

and exhausted hearts.

To the dog moms.

To the almost-mothers.

To the women whose youth

was stolen by cruel men,

bad timing,

or bodies that carried grief

instead of children.

Motherhood is not always soft.

Sometimes it is survival.

Sometimes it is sacrifice

with no witness.

Sometimes it is a little girl

learning how to keep herself alive

in the dark.

And if that counts for nothing

to the woman who gave me life—

it still counts to me.