A Million Invisible Ways

Mother’s Day feels different every year. The older I get, the more I realize motherhood was never meant to be carried alone. None of us become mothers without first being shaped by women who mothered us in some way first. Mothers, grandmothers, stepmothers, teachers, friends, mentors, women at church, women who stepped in quietly when we were drowning a little. The women who showed us how to comfort, nurture, sacrifice, endure, apologize, forgive, and love deeply.

This Mother’s Day, I keep thinking about all the influential women in my life. The women who made me feel safe as a little girl. The women who taught me how to care for people well. The women who reminded me that strength and softness can exist together. The women who sat beside me in hard seasons, celebrated me in beautiful ones, and loved my children like their own. Names like Kathy Jo, Judi, Betty, Colleen, Kathy, Debbie, Kathleen, Karla, Kristy, Sarah, Signe, Ann, Angela, Mellissa, Deitra, Rachel, Maija, all of these women immediately come to mind. Motherhood is passed down in a million invisible ways. In recipes. In hugs. In patience. In late night phone calls. In “you’re doing better than you think you are.” In watching another woman survive something so hard and learning that maybe you can too.

Then there’s my own journey into motherhood. The little boy who made me a mama first. My Odin. The one who taught me that your heart can physically exist outside your body. Motherhood with him has been joy and stretching and fierce love all tangled together. We have grown up side by side in so many ways. I’ve learned through him that motherhood is not perfection. It’s showing up over and over again. It’s learning how to stay soft in a hard world. It’s carrying the mental load, the emotional load, the schedules, the worries, the tiny magical moments nobody else notices and doing it all alone. It’s hearing “Mama” a thousand times a day and somehow someday missing it when the house is quiet.

And then came Fawkes. My bonus boy. One of the greatest unexpected gifts of my life. Stepmotherhood is its own kind of sacred humbling journey. It asks you to love without ownership. To show up consistently. To build trust brick by brick. To learn when to step in and when to step back. It can be beautiful and complicated at the same time. But loving him has expanded my heart in ways I never knew were possible. He made our family bigger, fuller, and sweeter. Watching the boys together has taught me so much about brotherhood, resilience, and the way children can love so naturally when adults make space for it.

And now this new little life growing quietly inside me.

What a miracle it is to long for a child. To pray for one. To wait and wait and wait. To hope. To wonder if just maybe someday your arms will hold another someone that your heart already loves deeply. This baby already feels woven into our family story since before we’ve even met them. Sometimes I catch myself imagining tiny fingers wrapped around their brothers’. Our boys teaching them how to throw rocks in the ocean or chase trails in the rain. Adam beside me, experiencing this season together as husband and wife, as partners, as each other’s forever person. There is something healing and deeply emotional about having this baby together, finally, with the person your soul feels safest with.

But motherhood is also hard.

It is holy exhausting. Beautiful and sometimes lonely. Rewarding and overstimulating. It asks everything from you physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. There are days you feel like you are absolutely crushing it, and days you wonder if you’re failing everyone all at once. There are moments of pure wonder immediately followed by moments where you hide in the bathroom for a moment of silence. There are seasons of confidence and seasons of survival.

And somehow both exist together.

That’s the joyous wonder of motherhood to me. The way love makes room for both joy and grief. Gratitude and exhaustion. The way your heart somehow keeps expanding to hold more people, more memories, more responsibility, more tenderness than you thought humanly possible.

This Mother’s Day, I’m simply grateful.

Grateful for the women who raised me and shaped me. Grateful for the privilege of being called “Mom” and “Mama Kaylee.” Grateful for my boys. Grateful for this baby. Grateful for the messy, loud, beautiful life we’re building together.

Motherhood has undone me and rebuilt me a hundred times over.

And somehow, I think that’s exactly what it was meant to do.