05/11/2026
mother:
someone who eats the burnt toast
and gives you the rest of their sandwich
someone who has measured time
not in hours,
but in wake-ups.
in fevers.
in one more glass of water.
one more story.
one more “stay with me until I fall asleep.”
someone who wishes — with a grief so deep it almost feels holy —
that she could reach inside your body
and pull every splinter of pain from it.
someone who would walk into your school
ready to fight every bully in the hallway
with her bare hands,
but instead teaches you how to survive
in a world that can be so cruel to tender things.
someone who risks her knees, her back, her dignity
just to go down the slide one more time beside you.
someone who gives away her quiet
for practices, rehearsals, pickup lines, snack duty,
because somewhere along the way
your joy became more important than her exhaustion.
someone who has been puked on, peed on, sneezed on, cried on,
and somehow still says,
“come here.”
someone who laughs at jokes that make no sense.
who memorizes the sound of your giggle
like it’s her favorite song.
someone who smells the top of your head
when you fall asleep on her chest
because she already knows
time is a thief.
someone who stands between you
and every monster she can.
even the invisible ones.
someone who kisses you goodbye every morning
like the world has not yet earned you.
someone who will always, always
be your biggest fan.
Happy Mother’s Day
to all of the mothers —
the exhausted ones, the grieving ones, the chosen ones,
the almost mothers, the trying-to-be mothers,
the stepmothers, grandmothers, foster mothers,
the ones healing from their own childhoods
while raising someone else through theirs.
