Happy Mother’s Day

Yesterday my cousin and I were talking about our mothers.

Which is something we’ve done, in one form or another, our entire lives.

Our dads were brothers.
Our moms were the daughters-in-law who became great friends.

Her mother was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She pierced my ears the old-fashioned way — behind my father’s back — which honestly only added to her glamour. I wanted to be just like her.

My mother was five feet tall, fearless, and completely uninterested in suffering fools politely. She did not believe in saying the “proper” thing if the truthful thing was available. My cousin wanted to be like her.

Then life did what life sometimes does.

My aunt died when we were teenagers, and for a while my mother tried to help fill that impossible space. But grief is heavy. Life is messy. And nobody really knows how to carry all of it perfectly.

My cousin eventually went to live with our aunt — our dads’ sister. The aunt who ruled the brothers, cooked enough food for an army, and somehow made everybody feel welcome exactly as they were. Her house was the original “come as you are” zone… with a side of unsolicited honesty.

We both wanted to be like her too.

Yesterday’s conversation covered all of it: admiration, conflict, exasperation, laughter, misunderstandings, and finally the thing you usually only learn when you’re older yourself…

None of them were perfect.
But every one of them loved us the best way they knew how.

And honestly? That turns out to matter more than getting everything right.

So today, on Mother’s Day, I’m thinking about all the women who step into the gaps life creates — mothers, aunts, grandmothers, sisters, cousins, friends, and all the women who somehow become family even when they didn’t start that way.

We are who we are because you showed up.

Even when you were tired.
Even when you were winging it.
Even when we didn’t appreciate it until years later.

Happy Mother’s Day to the women who loved us through it anyway.