Today is my grandma’s birthday. We called her Mom.
My mother was 17 when she had me and we lived with my grandparents in my early years. I grew up hearing her be called Mom and it stuck. Somehow, that name fit her perfectly.
Birthdays after someone is gone are strange things. They don’t announce themselves loudly, but they sit with you all day. They show up in quiet moments—when you’re folding laundry, when you smell something familiar, when your hands are busy and your mind wanders back to her without asking permission.
Some of my deepest comforts came from Mom. Sewing, for one. My love of sewing—of fabric, and texture, and making something useful and beautiful with my hands—came straight from her. When I sew now, it feels like a conversation that never really ended. Every stitch carries a little bit of her patience, her practicality, her quiet creativity. It still feels like being close to her, even all these years later.
Then there’s the food. I miss her slumghetti—that wonderfully imperfect, comforting dish that somehow tasted like home no matter how simple it was. No one else makes it quite the same, and maybe that’s the point. It wasn’t just about the meal; it was about the care behind it, the way she made it for me as many times as I asked as an act of love.
Some of the moments I miss most are the smallest ones. When I was little and didn’t want to nap, she’d let me hold her ring finger while she told me to “rest my eyes.” I can still feel it—how safe that felt, how the world quieted down just enough. That tiny gesture held so much comfort. It was her way of saying, I’m here. You’re okay.
Mom had that rare gift of making you feel steady just by being present. Not the dramatic kind of safe—the quiet kind. The kind where the edges of the world soften. Where you don’t have to explain yourself. Where being loved is as natural as breathing.
I think about the lessons she taught without ever formally teaching them. How love looks like showing up. How strength can be gentle. How kindness doesn’t have to be loud to be powerful. How family is built on consistency, not perfection.
There are days I wish I could tell her who I’ve become since she left. About the life I’m building. About the ways her influence still shows up—in my hands, in my kitchen, in the way I care for the people I love. I think she’d smile at that.
Sometimes I catch myself doing something and think, That’s Mom. A habit. A phrase. A moment of patience I didn’t know I had. And when that happens, the ache softens, because it reminds me she’s still here—stitched into who I am.
Today, on her birthday, I miss her deeply. I miss her hands, her food, her quiet reassurances. But I’m also grateful. Grateful for a love so strong that it still shows up in the smallest moments of my life.
Happy Birthday, Mom.
I still hold your hand—just in different ways now.
Blessings Y’all – Amy
