It’s here I can whisper to you the secrets from this year that only mothers know.

Somedays lately I find myself crawling on all fours just to make sure the Earth below is safe for my children to walk on.

It feels dangerous to trust in the promise of normal, when we saw how quickly and without warning it felt like the floor could be stolen from beneath us.

Trusting any good feelings is especially baffling since we were never granted the opportunity to process for ourselves what it was exactly that we survived.

During COVID no one offered us anything resembling a “Feelings Stick” and if they had, at the time, it would have felt like another thing we were being asked to carry.

In order to move forward and feel our deeply earned joy, there must first be an awareness brought to the truth: the truth that mothers were asked to sweep our pain beneath a rug on a bottomless floor.

If we’re looking for an acknowledgement of the disproportionate-lode we shouldered, this, right now, may be our only chance.

So hear me:

From one mother to another I didn’t have to witness your hurt to know that it existed. We can look around and nod and know and in the knowing, take comfort that you are seen.

Take solice in the recognition that within each of us, exists the stones to make our own solid ground.

We don’t have to fear the unknown, so long as we’ve planted our faith firmly within ourselves. Have confidence that we can withstand anything, because here we sit.

Mothers have and will always be the groundskeepers for humanity.

And so, when uncertainty undoubtably arises—

Remember mothers, the floor is ours.