Mother’s Day Reflections: A Journey Through Grief, Growth, and Grace

Every ride is a prayer. A moment of freedom, memory, and love carried on the wind.

Part 1: The Mother I Lost

Mother’s Day hasn’t always been an easy day for me. When I was eight years old, my mother died in a motorcycle accident while my sister and I were visiting her for Christmas vacation. It was December 29, 1979—just days after celebrating Christmas, playing board games and eating takeout. That night, she asked us for permission to go out. I still remember how she came downstairs before she knocked on the door after going upstairs to let the neighbors know she was leaving and to keep a watchful ear out for us, and said, “I love you girls.” Those would be the last words I ever heard her say.

That night, I went to bed as any child would. But sometime in the dark hours, the phone rang. It was my sister who answered. Then came the knock on the door. I can still hear the hysterical voices—my aunt, my grandmother—saying words like "death" and "dead." I couldn’t make sense of them. My sister kept coming in to check on me while everything unfolded around us. The next morning, my aunt gently told me that my mother was gone.

That moment shattered something in me. At eight years old, I didn’t just lose my mother—I lost a sense of being held, of being chosen, of being protected. More than anything, I think I lost hope. At the time of her death, my mother had just started turning a corner. She was trying to stop drinking and drugging, had her first stable job, and was holding on to the hope that my sister might come back to live with her. I longed for her for years, wishing for the kind of warmth I’d only gotten in small, fleeting doses during summer visits and school breaks. My mother was a beautiful soul who struggled with addiction, and though our time together was short and inconsistent, she was mine. And I felt that absence like a missing limb.

That loss shaped everything that came next: the way I moved through childhood, how I sought love, and how I eventually learned to mother. It made me fierce. Fiercely protective. Fiercely angry. Fiercely broken at times too. I longed for fierce love, but I didn’t yet understand it. It took me decades to realize that even though I had lost her, I could still carry her forward through the way I choose to live, love, and nurture.

I’ve had to learn, slowly and painfully, how to mother myself. How to fill my own cup when no one else could. How to sit with grief without letting it define me. How to honor the tender parts of me that still ache for a mother’s touch. In some ways, every act of love I offer—whether to my children, my grandchildren, my students, or my animals—is a prayer to the mother I lost and the mother I’ve become.

Part 2: The Mother Who Raised Me

My parents divorced when I was just nine months old. I lived with my mother until the age of two, when she relinquished custody of my sister and me to my father, unable to care for us at the time. After that, we went to live with our father and his new wife. She already had four children of her own, and when I was four, she gave birth to my half-sister. Suddenly, there were seven children under one roof—and she was at the center of it all.

Even though she was there day in and day out, I never stopped aching for my own mother. That longing shaped how I saw her. She would often say, “I love you like my own daughter,” but I never truly felt that to be true. Not because she didn’t try in her own way, but because my heart was always looking for someone else.

We didn’t stay in one place long. Our family moved often—on average, every two years. Just when I would begin to find a sense of grounding, we’d pack up and start over. That kind of transience leaves a mark. It’s hard to feel safe, to build roots, to connect with others when the ground beneath you is always shifting.

The chaos of a large blended family combined with constant moving made life feel unstable, even unsafe at times. There were wounds—traumas that were never fully spoken about. And there were things that happened, things no child should endure. I carried deep resentment toward my stepmother for not protecting us. For knowing, and not doing more. For not hearing the silent screams.

But time, healing, and motherhood have softened some of those hard edges. I now see a woman who was doing the best she could with what she had. A woman who took in two daughters who weren’t hers by birth and managed to feed, clothe, and care for seven children while navigating her own challenges. I don’t excuse what wasn’t done—but I understand it more clearly now.

Forgiveness didn’t come quickly. But today, I hold love and respect for her—not for being perfect, but for being present. She stayed. She showed up. And in that, I find something to honor.

Part 3: Becoming a Mother Myself

These two anchored me when life felt unsteady. Motherhood grew me in every direction.

Becoming a mother cracked me open in ways I never expected. I didn’t have a clear model for what motherhood looked like, at least not the kind that made me feel safe, nurtured, or deeply loved. So when I became a mother, I was holding both an incredible gift and the weight of generations of pain. I was determined to love fiercely—but I was also still learning how to love myself.

Motherhood came with a deep sense of purpose, but also deep fear. I didn’t want to repeat the chaos I’d grown up in. And yet, at times, I did. Trauma doesn’t vanish when we give birth—it travels with us, surfacing in our reactions, our choices, our exhaustion. I didn’t always get it right. I moved often. I struggled with anger. I drank too much in my 20s and 30s. I tried to hold everything together, even when I felt like I was falling apart.

And still, I loved my children with every ounce of my being. My son and daughter were my anchors in a world that often felt too unsteady. I worked hard to create something better for them. Even when I didn’t have the tools or the roadmap, I gave them what I had: my heart, my protection, my prayers. There were times I felt more like a survivor than a mother—but I kept showing up.

One of the most humbling parts of my motherhood journey was realizing that I couldn’t do it all. That love wasn’t always enough to shield them from life’s challenges. That sometimes, the greatest act of mothering was letting go—allowing them to choose stability when I couldn’t offer it yet. I carry both the pride and the ache of those choices.

What I know now is that we can’t mother from an empty cup. And for a long time, mine was running on fumes. I had to learn—slowly, painfully, and through many missteps—how to mother myself. Yoga helped. Reiki helped. Ayurveda gave me a language for my body, my energy, my rhythm. The more I healed, the more I could show up for my children with steadiness instead of survival.

I am not a perfect mother. But I am a present one. I am a forgiving one. And above all, I am a mother who chose to rise, again and again.

Part 4: Watching My Daughter Become a Mother

Watching my daughter become a mother is witnessing the transformation of my own story.

One of the greatest blessings of my life has been witnessing my daughter become a mother herself. There’s something profound about seeing your child cradle their own child—something that stirs ancient threads of love, lineage, and healing.

She mothers in ways I admire deeply. With patience I didn’t have at her age. With calm that reminds me of the kind of mother I always wanted to be. I watch her soothe tantrums with grace, speak gently when the day is long, and show up with a softness that is both natural and intentional. It humbles me, truly. I learn from her every day.

I sometimes wonder if this is the way we heal generational pain—not just through our own work, but through the way our children grow into who they were meant to be. My daughter is not only a beautiful mother to her children—she is also a bridge for others. In her work, she supports women in becoming better mothers themselves. She holds space for their struggles and gently guides them toward strength, just as she does in her own home.

Watching her reminds me that the seeds we plant—however imperfectly—can still blossom into something extraordinary. And that while I may not have always gotten it right, I must have done something right. Because here she is, loving deeply, mothering wisely, and showing up fully for her children and her community.

She is my greatest teacher in this season of life. And in her, I see not just the continuation of my story, but the transformation of it.

She is my greatest teacher in this season of life.

Part 5: Becoming Mimi — The Sacred Role of Grandmother

There is a tenderness in being a grandmother that’s unlike anything I’ve ever known. It’s not just an extension of motherhood—it’s something deeper, something softer, something holy. When my daughter became a mother, I became Mimi—and with that, my heart expanded in ways I didn’t think were possible.

I look at my grandchildren and see a chance to offer the stability I once longed for. I get to mother from a fuller cup now, one that has been poured into by years of healing, forgiveness, and learning to love myself. I get to slow down. To be present. To watch closely and listen carefully. I get to teach them the ways of the Earth, the rhythms of the body, and the sacredness of simple moments.

These little ones know my hands in the soil, my stories about herbs, and the joy of dancing barefoot in the yard. They know the scent of Ayurvedic oils and the comfort of being seen without needing to be perfect. I teach them about food, nature, and how to care for their bodies and each other—not through rules, but through rhythm. Through love.

Sometimes I think about how I carried them within me, even before they were born. When I was pregnant with my daughter, their cells were already there, inside her tiny forming body, resting within mine. It gives me chills every time I think of that—a reminder of how we are all connected, how we carry each other across time.

Being Mimi means giving what I never had, and watching it grow into something beautiful.

Being Mimi is one of the greatest honors of my life. It’s where I get to rewrite the story, not with blame or regret, but with love. It’s where I get to show up—not because I have to, but because I want to. It’s where I feel closest to the Divine Feminine… to the Mother in all things.

Part 6: The Mothers I Witness

Motherhood takes many shapes, and I’ve been blessed to witness its beauty in so many women around me. Friends, students, and soul sisters—each walking their own path, each mothering in their own powerful way. Some have birthed children, some have mothered through grief or loss, some have chosen not to have children at all and yet pour out their love in quiet, nurturing ways the world sometimes overlooks.

I see the young mothers who show up even when they’re running on empty. The women healing their lineage while raising babies with more tenderness than they were ever given. The grandmothers who now hold their families like a strong, steady root. The mothers who lost their children and still carry love that ripples through the world. And the women who become mothers to others—not through biology, but through presence, guidance, and care.

I’ve taught yoga classes where I watched women mother their own hearts through breath and stillness. I’ve had clients come to my table exhausted, burdened, carrying the invisible weight of being the one everyone relies on. I’ve sat with women trying to figure out how to mother and be whole at the same time, each of us navigating our own quiet struggles.

To all of them—to all of you—I bow. You are the living embodiment of strength and softness. You are sacred. You are seen.

Part 7: Held by Mother Nature

If there is one mother who has never left me, it is Mother Nature.

She has been my refuge, my guide, and my reminder that everything has its season. When I couldn’t find comfort in people, I found it in the trees. When I didn’t feel safe in my home, the rhythm of the wind, the grounding of the soil, the watchful presence of birds reminded me that I belonged somewhere. Always.

Nature has taught me how to mother myself. How to rest in winter. How to bloom in spring. How to release in autumn. How to burn bright and draw boundaries like the sun in summer. She teaches in whispers and wildness, in stillness and storms. And if we listen—really listen—she shows us the way back to our center.

She visits often, landing low, right beside me. A reminder that love never really leaves.

I believe now that my own mother, in her absence, returned to me through nature. That she tends to me in the cardinal who visits often and lands low, right beside where I sit. That her love lives in the garden soil I run my hands through, in the moonlight as I take walks around my beautiful yard, in the tender way I care for every living thing. She is in the wind. She is in the birds. She is in me.

Mother Nature doesn’t ask for perfection. She asks for presence. She reminds me that it’s okay to fall apart and begin again. That decay is part of life. That beauty exists even in the mess. And that love, real love, is cyclical, seasonal, and eternal.

Part 8: A Love That Never Leaves

This Mother’s Day, I had planned to ride my motorcycle in honor of my mom. Every time I get on my bike, I feel her with me—because when I ride, I feel her most. The wind against my face, the hum of the engine, the open road—it’s as if she’s riding with me, arms around my shoulders, whispering “I’m still here.”

But this year, the battery was dead. And somehow, I didn’t fight it. I took it as a sign. Maybe she didn’t want me on the road that day. Maybe she wanted me to be still.

So I sat outside instead. For three hours. Owen and I, along with the pups, sat quietly together as we watched the birds. And that’s when the cardinal came. Not just passing through, but close—low to the ground, right near where I was sitting. I’ve come to believe cardinals are messengers. That when they appear, so do our loved ones. And I knew in that moment… she was with me. Not in the past, not in a memory, but right there in the present, in nature, in the red flash of wings and the stillness between heartbeats.

I believe now that my mother left her earthly body so she could care for me in ways this world couldn’t hold. Through nature. Through instinct. Through everything that has carried me, taught me, and shaped me into the woman I’ve become.

This story of mothering—of losing, of longing, of becoming—is not just about children. It’s about learning to mother ourselves. Because we can’t keep giving from an empty well. We need to rest, to grieve, to nourish, to listen. To walk barefoot on the earth and feel that we belong here. To remember that we, too, are held.

And so I offer this story to every mother, in every form: birth mother, stepmother, soul mother, grandmother, teacher, friend. To every woman learning to care for herself with the same devotion she gives to others. You are not alone. You are not broken. You are sacred.

This is my Mother's Day prayer: that we learn to mother ourselves the way Nature mothers us—gently, consistently, and with love that never leaves.

Mothering ourselves is the deepest prayer. This is mine.