My mother was the most loving presence in my early life. She gave everything—her time, her career, her youth—to raise me and my sister. She stayed home, not because she was forced to, but because she believed it mattered. She made our home a world. She chose motherhood as her highest vocation when it mattered most, and gave us what too few children receive today: a full presence.
She was there for every scraped knee, every school recital, every heartbreak. Ours was not a childhood delegated. It was crafted—patiently, lovingly, hour by hour. The things she gave me, I now realize, are the foundation stones of everything good in my life. She was the first person to ever make me feel safe.
But life is not simple. And love doesn’t mean easy.
When I was 16—by old-world standards, a man—my mother left the family home. My parents separated. I stayed with my father. It wasn’t abandonment. She was still around, still close, still loving. But it was a wound. A fracture that took years to name. There was no villain. No moral failure. Just a tragedy of good people pulled apart by something deeper than themselves.
I don’t blame them. I blame the culture.
I blame our decayed modern world—and its chief narrative organ, Hollywood—for disrupting the sacred balance between men and women.
For making my mom feel like her sacred work as a mother wasn’t enough.
For whispering that meaning lived somewhere else—in reinvention, in autonomy, in escape.
For numbing my dad with distraction and stripping his world of sacred battles—leaving only routines, responsibilities, and noise.
The stories they were fed were subtle lies, packaged as freedom.
Lies that stole the script. Lies that unmade the myth.
As I wrote elsewhere: “We stopped telling our daughters they were sacred. We stopped telling our sons they were needed. We gave them not wisdom, but content. Not rites, but playlists. Not Scripture, but memes.”
And those myths didn’t just shape teenagers.
They shaped our parents.
They reshaped our homes.
But even then—even inside a story that betrayed her—my mom still loved.
She still stayed close.
She still showed up.
She’s always been just a plane ride away. And she always meant it.
Even today, she comes and stays for months at a time. She is close to my boys—so close. They love their grandma with a deep, sacred affection. And she loves them with her whole being. She was in the room when both of them were born. Not just present—crucial. She has the most beautiful birth-side manner I’ve ever seen. Not just calm. Not just wise. But holy. She’s been there for the births of friends’ children, for all four of my sister’s kids in Australia. She gives not because she’s obligated, but because it’s who she is.
There were years when our relationship was strained. Deeply. There were even months when I didn’t speak to her. Around the 2020 election, when politics made everything harder, I shut her out. I didn’t know how to carry the tension of love and disappointment. We were both in pain. But about 18 months ago, the dam broke. I said everything I had to say. And she didn’t run. She stayed. She listened. She loved me through it.
Here’s the truth: I didn’t need my mom much as an adult man. Not in the practical sense. I needed my dad during those years. And thank God he was there. But now, as a husband and father myself, I’ve come to see something I never expected:
I do need my mother. My wife needs my mother. And my sons need her more than I ever did.
There is no way—no way—that my wife and I could have made it through the first few months of our first child without my mom.
I run a small company. I support software systems that operate 24/7. When you’re self-employed, there is no paternity leave. There is no backup team. There is no pause button. The business survives because you carry it.
And during that time—when the world demanded my labor, and my wife needed to heal, and our newborn son needed his mother—there was only one other person who could carry the load:
Grandma. My mom.
It wasn’t Corporate America who showed up.
It wasn’t the government.
It wasn’t a doula or a hired nurse.
It was my mother.
She flew in and stayed with us for two months. By the end, we were ready for our own space again—but during those fragile weeks, she was the difference. She made the meals. She cleaned the house. She took over at 4 a.m. so we could close our eyes and breathe. She loved my wife like her own daughter. She held the center when I couldn’t. She gave us grace and rhythm and survival.
My wife’s mother—my mother-in-law—is an incredibly loving woman. During our first birth, she was still working, navigating the final stretch of a long and successful career. I know in my heart that if we had needed her, she would have dropped everything to be there. Her love runs just as deep. But we didn’t have to ask—because my mom was there, and she carried the load.
I’ve never spoken to her about it directly, but I imagine that reality must carry a quiet ache. Not because she failed—but because she never got the chance. She didn’t miss that moment by lack of love, but by the design of the modern world—a world that asks women to choose between career and care, between presence and performance. She never should have had to choose.
But then—by the grace of God—something unexpected happened. Just a few months after our son was born, she was laid off. And that loss became a gift. She was able to step in and help my wife. She became the nearby anchor we needed. And ever since, she has been a constant, loving presence in our lives. She is local, she is available, and she gives of herself generously. Our boys adore her. And so do we.
The first child is one of the most intense human experiences you can have. And now, because of grace, both of our mothers have been part of that journey. Each in their own way. Each irreplaceable.
That’s the only reason we’ve been able to live a traditional life that honors and glorifies my wife too—not because the system helped us, but because our mothers did.
They didn’t outsource love.
They didn’t need a script.
They just showed up.
This is what real strength looks like.
This is what real womanhood looks like.
This is what real civilization depends on.
A man can build the house.
A woman can make it a home.
But when the storms come—when babies cry and the world won’t stop spinning—it takes mothers, grandmothers, women of presence and sacrifice, to hold the line.
And both of you did.
One across the ocean.
One just down the road.
Two women—bound not by convenience or career, but by love.
One carried us through the storm.
The other became our shelter.
And Mom—though you live a third of the world away,
though your journey has not always been simple—
you are still, and always will be, just a plane ride away.
Happy Mother’s Day.
I see you.
I love you.
And I honor you.
And when our boys are older, I’ll tell them.
So they’ll remember—not just who you were,
but what you did when we needed you most.