As a single Black woman in her early 30s without kids, I’ve spent many Mother’s Days quietly watching the world pour into women like my own mama—strong, tired, often overlooked. This is a reflection on what it means to honor that kind of strength. The kind passed down in silence. The kind you don’t always notice until you’re grown and carrying your own weight. It’s a love letter to our mothers, to the sacrifices they never counted as losses, and a reminder to give them their flowers while they’re still here to smell them.
I don’t have kids of my own. But every year around this time, Mother’s Day still hits me like a wave I wasn’t ready for. Not in a sad way exactly—but in that heavy, reflective kind of way. The kind that makes you sit down a little longer. The kind that slows your scrolling, pulls you out of autopilot, and reminds you of all the things your mama gave you that didn’t come wrapped in ribbons.
When you grow up with a strong Black mother, you don’t always realize she’s strong because she had to be. You just know she’s always been there. Working long hours. Making dinner stretch. Holding it down even when no one held her.
My mama didn’t raise me with speeches about strength. She showed me. In the way she kept going when life said stop. In the way she gave when she had little. In the way she held space for everyone, even when she had nothing left for herself. That’s the kind of strength I grew up watching. Quiet. Relentless. Unpaid and underpraised.
Now, in my early 30s, I’m starting to see just how much of that strength I’ve inherited. Not because I asked for it. But because I had no choice. Because when you’re raised by a woman who survives off grit and prayer, you learn early that rest is a luxury, softness is earned, and sometimes, the only way forward is through.
But let me be clear: this isn’t about glorifying struggle. I’m tired of that narrative. Our mamas didn’t suffer so we could turn their resilience into an aesthetic. They did it because they had to. Because no one else was going to. And I think that’s what makes this holiday complicated sometimes. How do you celebrate a woman who gave up so much without ever asking to be made a martyr?
You give her her flowers. Literally and figuratively.
You call her, even if she says she doesn’t need anything. You thank her, even if she brushes it off. You remind her that the weight she carried wasn’t invisible. That the sacrifices didn’t go unnoticed. That the love she gave, even when it looked like tough love, got you here.
And if your relationship with your mother is strained or distant, that’s real too. There’s no one-size-fits-all way to navigate this day. But if you’re like me—Black, woman, grown, and finally able to see your mother for who she really is (a human being, not a superhero)—then maybe this is the year you start pouring back into her in little ways. The same way she poured into you when no one was watching.
To the mothers who worked night shifts and still showed up for parent-teacher conferences. To the ones who made single-parenting look like a team sport. To the ones who didn’t have a blueprint but built one anyway. To the women who were both soft and steel, who hugged and hollered, who protected and provided—we see you.
We thank you.
We love you.
And we give you your flowers. Not just today, but always.
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