You carry your mother in every cell of your body. — Thich Nhat Hanh
Let's take a breath together.
This year has been a lot to hold. Families separated. Communities living in fear. An economy squeezing people who were already stretched thin. The news arrives each morning like something heavy set down on your chest before you've even had coffee.
And into all of that — Mother's Day arrives.
I've been sitting with what this day means to hold all at once. Because for some of us, Mother’s Day is warm and full — a call from our kids, a handmade card, the sweetness of being seen.
For others, today carries a quiet ache. The absence of a mother you've lost. The grief of a child you've lost. The complicated tenderness of a relationship that never became what you needed it to be. The longing of wanting to be a mother and not yet being one.
All of it is real. All of it belongs here.
And motherhood belongs to anyone who has ever tended something living with their whole heart.
The auntie. The mentor. The fur mama. The caregiver who showed up when it mattered. The healer, the community keeper, the one doing the slow sacred work of loving herself back to wholeness. If you have ever loved someone into becoming more whole, you know this energy.
With everything heavy in the world, I've been deep in thought about why all of what we do as mothers matters. The tending, the showing up, the trying to do it right.
When the world outside feels like it's on fire, it feels more important than ever.
I think about my trip to Joshua Tree with the kids— the wide open sky, watching them run toward those enormous rocks with no hesitation, no fear, just pure aliveness. The way they see the world strips everything back to what's simple and true. Play. Presence. The warmth of being held by someone who loves you completely.
The reality is that the systems and structures of this world have never been friendly to the mother-child bond. They profit from our exhaustion, our distraction, our disconnection from each other. Fractured families. Mothers too depleted to be present. Children starved for the thing that actually heals — consistent, embodied, unhurried love.
So my resistance — small and daily and defiant — is closeness. It is holding my kids tight. It is being present enough to see the world through their eyes, which always brings me back to lightness, to play, to what actually matters. Every moment of real connection is an act of protection. Every memory we build together is a root they will stand on for the rest of their lives.
Your mothering matters. Not because it fixes or changes the world outside immediately. But because it builds the people who will one day walk into that world knowing they were loved well. That is not small. That is everything.
Whatever this day holds for you — joy, grief, complexity, numbness, or some mix of all four — I want you to know you are seen. The invisible work you do, the love you pour out, the way you keep going even when you're tired — it is witnessed, even when it feels like it isn't.
May this day meet you gently. May you feel held in love, in memory, in the warmth of the people who carry you with them — in every cell of their bodies.
With so much love and a rose for you from my garden,
Red rose from Melissa of Little Sage garden