How to Become
It is Mother’s Day. And it is her birthday. A milestone one.
We are not in the same city. Not even the same country or continent. Yet in some ways, I feel closer to her now than I did when we lived under the same roof.
There is something that distance allows.
Without the logistics of presence—planning visits, checking in, trading updates—there is space for a different kind of reflection. I’m not thinking about what to gift her, or how to celebrate her. Instead, I find myself thinking about who she is, and how I’ve come to see her more clearly over time.
When I was younger, she was simply “Mom.”
Constant. Capable. The one who stayed up when I was sick, who planned birthdays, who made sure there was always food in the house and clothes in the closet. Her presence was so reliable that it became invisible. Like light. Like air.
I never thought to ask who she was before all of that. Before she was responsible for anyone but herself. Before she became the person I now know so intimately, but saw only in relation to me.
Over time, that has changed. Slowly, quietly, and without any one defining moment, I began to see her differently. I began to notice the woman behind the role. The quiet strength beneath her gentleness. The decisions she made that I never noticed, and the ones I may never know about. The way she has carried so much, and asked for so little.
There is so much she gave that she never named. So many moments of care that were never called out as love, and yet, that’s exactly what they were. She never told me what she sacrificed. She never asked to be acknowledged. And now, years later, I find myself trying to name what she never pointed to—because it matters more than I knew how to say.
I also see her in unexpected places now.
In how I move through the world. In how I respond when someone needs comfort. In how I wait before speaking. In how I try, often unconsciously, to create space for those around me. These are not lessons she sat down to teach. And yet, I learned them all the same.
There are moments when I hear her in my voice. Not because I am trying to sound like her. Simply because she is there. I notice her presence in my gestures, in my instincts, in the quiet ways I try to offer care. It’s not mimicry. It’s memory—etched not in thought, but in being.
We haven’t lived near each other in a long time. The frequency of our contact has changed over the years. But her influence hasn’t faded. If anything, it has become more visible, now that I’m far enough away to see the whole shape of it.
Sometimes, distance creates clarity.
I didn’t set out to become like her. I simply grew. And in growing, I discovered that much of who I am was formed by who and how she is. By how she lives. By what she models, even without meaning to. I used to think that gratitude was something I needed to express in words. But now I see that gratitude can also be something I live.
And maybe that is the most honest way to thank her. Not by saying it. But by becoming it.
And that is how I learned to become.
Happy Mother’s Day and Happy Birthday Mom.
