A Day to Celebrate Love in All Its Forms: Mother’s Day Reflections

Mother’s Day is a special day for most of us. Whether you’re a mother yourself, you have (or had) a mother, or you’ve mothered in a way that doesn’t follow the traditional script—this day carries deep meaning.

Even if your mother is no longer with you, today is still a day to celebrate her. Her life, her influence, her love—even if it looked imperfect. And if you’ve lost a child, today is also a day to celebrate you. The love you gave, the space they held, and the strength it takes to carry on.

If you’ve longed to have children of your own but haven’t, your heart still counts. Your love still matters. You are seen.
If you’ve adopted or helped raise someone else’s child—you are a mother in every way that counts.

And then there’s another group that often gets overlooked on this day—fathers who had to step into both roles. That’s a tender one. It was in my own life.

My mother passed away when I was sixteen, but she spent many years in and out of hospitals before that. My father had to raise me, mostly on his own. Life wasn’t always easy for us, but I knew this much: he did his best.

I remember one year—our second Mother’s Day without her—I gave him a card. The front said, “Happy Mother’s Day,” and the inside read, “To my father, who is doing double duty—and doing it great.”
I was proud of that card. But he didn’t take it well.

He put the card down and quietly said, “I’m not your mother.” And he walked away.

Years later, when our relationship had healed and deepened, he told me the truth: that card had cut deeper than I knew. It reminded him that I didn’t have my mom anymore. That he felt he didn’t know how to raise a girl on his own. That he worried he was failing me.

But I told him then, and I’d tell him again today—he must’ve done something right, because I turned out pretty good.

By that time, he had quit drinking. He was helping me raise my own child. And though we didn’t always agree, he was a good man. A good dad. I think Mom would’ve been proud of him, too.

Life threw me some hard curveballs, and I didn’t get to keep my parents as long as I wanted—Mom passed when I was 16, and Dad when I was 29. But I still celebrate them. On Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Because they both loved me. They both gave what they could. They both had me.

So today, I celebrate every kind of mother:

• The ones who gave birth.
• The ones who stepped in.
• The ones who are still waiting.
• The ones who’ve lost.
• The ones who’ve loved deeply and given quietly.
• And yes, even the fathers who mothered the best they could.

I’ve had many losses. But I’ve also had four of the best gifts life ever gave me—my children.

So if today feels complicated, if it stings, or if it’s sweet—just know this:
You are not forgotten. You are not alone. And you are worth celebrating.

Because this day, more than anything, is about love—the love we’ve received and the love we still have to give.