The part of you your children have never met.

That’s what I want to talk about today. But first… let me tell you about my mom.

Mother’s Day is coming up… and most of us will celebrate it the way we always do.

A call, a lunch, flowers, maybe a nice conversation.

And yet… sometimes those conversations stay in the familiar. Easy, comfortable… and maybe just scratching the surface of what’s really there.

How well do you know… or did you ever really know… your mom?

Did you know her dreams, what made her feel alive, what kept her up at night? Or have you mostly known her through the role she played in your life?

My mom passed away 31 years ago. Up until then, I thought I knew her.

But after she passed, I started hearing stories. From her girlfriends, her brothers, people who had worked with her. And I remember thinking, who is this woman?

Because the mom who raised me was only a part of who she really was.

My mom was a badass woman.

During a dictatorship that lasted 15 years, with two of her brothers in jail, she showed up every single week to visit them. She stood in line in the rain, in the freezing cold, went through invasive searches…

And then walked in with jam she had made herself, ready to make them laugh.

I knew she went to visit my uncles.
I didn’t know everything it took for her to be there.

Recently, a woman I’d never met sent me a message. She said my mom had given her her first job, and that she still missed her.

Another piece of her I never got to fully see.

There are so many conversations we never had. She didn’t want to make us sad. She didn’t want us to stop being kids while she was carrying so much.

So we stayed in our roles.

Can you relate?

Maybe your mom is no longer here. Maybe she is, and there are still pieces of her you haven’t fully seen. Maybe your experience with her wasn’t easy or loving — I see you too. Nothing I’m saying takes away from that.

Now let me ask you something harder.

What do your children know about you?

Not you as their mom. You. The woman who existed before them, alongside them, underneath the role.

The one who has carried things nobody fully sees. The one who has been braver, more complicated, more alive than the version that shows up at dinner.

When we only show our children the role, we accidentally teach them that their full selves aren’t welcome either.

And suddenly everyone is performing… and nobody feels truly seen.

That ache you feel sometimes — that subtle loneliness even in a full house, that sense of we’re talking but not really talking —
That’s not distance. That’s an invitation.

It’s you, wanting to be known.

What if our children didn’t have to wait until we were gone to really know us?

What if we gave them that gift now — while we’re still here, still becoming, still so beautifully unfinished?

That’s the conversation I want to keep having with you.

With love, your fellow mamma 🌸