Dear Me,

Happy Mother’s Day.

You don’t hear that enough—not the way you deserve to hear it. Not after all the battles you’ve fought to show up every day for three little humans who call you “Mom.”

So today, let’s be honest—with tenderness, with truth, with the kind of love you’ve always given to others but rarely given yourself.

You are doing an incredible job.

Even on the days you question everything.

Even when the house is loud and your brain is louder.

Even when your body is tired, your thoughts keep racing, spiraling, and stretching you too thin.

You are showing up.

You are loving.

You are leading.

You are raising warriors while surviving invisible wars of your own.

OCD didn’t just arrive out of nowhere.

It came through the cracks that grief left behind.

It showed up when the world fell apart, and you couldn’t make it stop spinning. It became your way of trying to hold things still.

To find order in the chaos that followed losing him.

ADHD makes everything louder. Your thoughts don’t know how to walk—they run. You forget things mid-sentence. You’re pulled in a thousand directions at once. But somehow, you still juggle drop-offs, grocery lists, meltdowns, appointments, and dreams—with half a tank and a full heart.

And PTSD…

It doesn’t care that it’s daylight. It doesn’t care that your babies are laughing or that your calendar is full. It shows up anyway, demanding attention, dragging you into moments you’ve worked so hard to escape.

And then there’s depression.

The heavy kind. The kind that doesn’t always look like sadness—it just feels like weight. Like static. Like silence that doesn’t stop humming.

And yet—you rise.

With coffee. With compassion. With grit. With grace.

With to-do lists and tear-filled prayers.

With tired eyes and the kind of heart that refuses to give up, even when everything inside you wants to.

People see the mom who gets it done. But they don’t always see the cost.

The nights you cry alone. The afternoons you push through the fog.

The mornings where you need a moment just to remember who you are, outside of being needed.

But you know. And I do, too.

So today, say this out loud:

I am a damn miracle.

Not because you’ve done it all perfectly.

But because you’ve kept going anyway.

You’ve chosen love when it was hard.

You’ve chosen your kids when you were breaking.

You’ve chosen hope in the face of heartache.

And you’ve turned pain into power and fear into fierce protection.

You’ve become the woman your younger self prayed for.

You’ve become the mother your kids will one day thank you for your strength.

This life hasn’t been kind.

But you-you’ve been courageous.

So take a breath.

Take a bow.

Take this day and hold it close.

Even if no one else says it:

I see you. I’m proud of you. I love you.

And before I close this letter, I want to say this—

To every widow, single mom, divorced mom, foster mom, stepmom, or mother just trying to hold it together:

You are seen. You are needed. You are loved.

You carry so much, and still, you keep going. Even when you're breaking inside, you find ways to be whole for the ones who depend on you.

Please find the space to love yourself the way you love everyone else.

That’s not selfish. That’s sacred.

To the mothers who stood beside me when my world fell apart—thank you.

To those who held space for me when I had none left to offer—thank you.

To my friends, mothers now themselves, who grew with me through the pain and the years—thank you.

You reminded me that love can stay even when everything else shifts.

This Mother’s Day isn’t just for me.

It’s for all of us.

The fierce.

The tender.

The tired.

The unbreakable.

We are mothers.

We are warriors.

And we are never alone.

With endless love and unshakable grace,

Tiki