05/10/2026
The First Alchemy ~
Let us honour the mothers who gave us breath, and the mothers who gave us bread.
Honour the ones whose arms were a first geography, and the ones whose absence taught us to map our own way.
For the mother who sings lullabies, and the mother who teaches a firm silence.
For the mother by blood, by law, by chance, by choice.
For the woman who mothered you for a single, saving afternoon, and the grandmother who spoke your name like a prayer from a country you’ve never seen.
Honour the mother who arrives on time, and the one still trying to heal the mother she had.
Honour the womb that held you, the hands that lifted you, the voice that corrected you, and the back that bent so yours could be straight.
For the mother of fur and feather, the one whose food bowl you fill before your own.
For the mothering that comes from fathers, siblings, strangers—the quiet miracle of being seen when you are most invisible.
And honour the mothers who never got to hold their child, whose love exists only as a ghost limb, an ache with no direction.
Let us bow to the kitchen tables scarred by homework and grief.
To the minivans turned into mobile therapists.
To the late-night Google searches for fevers and heartbreak and “is this normal.”
And for the motherless—may this moment be a soft place to rest.
For the exhausted, the forgotten, the judged, the ones who failed and stayed anyway—may you know you have already done the first alchemy: turning your own body into a bridge.
Today, we do not ask you to be perfect.
We ask only that you let the light fall on your tired face.
Because a mother is not one thing.
She is the name for the love that refuses to let the world be cruel without a fight.
So here’s to all the ways we are held.
And to all the ways we hold each other.
Amen 🙏
