#31: I Have Three Mothers
A Mother's Day Tribute to the Moms We've Lost Since Mother's Day Last
Happy Mother’s Day 2025!
First, Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms. You’re the heartbeat of every family and the center of our civilization. Thank you for being the bearers of new life and the caretakers of those little lives. Humanity would literally end without you.
Second, Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms we’ve lost since Mother’s Day 2024. And, if this is your first Mother’s Day without your mom, it’s probably been a tough one. It certainly has been for Chris and me as we recently lost both of our moms. The year of firsts is always hard—it was with our dads and is so with our moms—and none of us gets a pass. Grief doesn’t discriminate.
Happy Mother’s Day to All the “Mothers”
When it comes to mothers, I hit the jackpot because I didn’t just get one, or even two, I got three.
One Who Gave Me Life (My birth mother)
One Who Raised Me In this Life (My adoptive mother, aka my mom)
One Who Gave Me the Love of My Life (My mother-in-law)
My Birth Mother
I’ve written much about my birth story, but if you’re new to this newsletter or want a recap, you can read it here.
Here’s the highlight reel: I was conceived in rape (he was 19, she was 13) and born in a home for unwed mothers on Thanksgiving Day, November 22, 1973, exactly 10 months to the day after Roe v. Wade was decided. I was given up for adoption and the rest is history (it’s spicey at times though)!
On this Mother’s Day, we celebrate you moms who weren’t able to raise their children, but gave them up so another mother could!
My Mom
My adoption took a couple of months to finalize given the complicated circumstances of my conception (statutory rape for starters) and my birth mother’s subsequent decision not to disclose the identity of my biological father. Not quite sure how it all happened, but on January 24, 1974, I went to my forever home and became the fourth and final kid in my new family. My parents had two boys and then adopted two girls, all of us are two years apart. They originally wanted 6 kids, but mom was tuckered out after I came along and they knew their family was complete. I guess they saved the best for last! Ha …
The four of us lost our mom, and my husband his mother-in-law, on January 23, 2025 so this is our first Mother’s Day without her. There was no card to mail, no phone call to make, and no words of gratitude to share. There’s a giant void, and there always will be, but it’s also the natural cycle of life. Right?
I was able to spend a lot of time with my mom the last 19 months of her life (from diagnosis to death), and doing so was among the most important things I’ve ever done, or will ever do. My only regret is that I didn’t have another 19 months, and then another 19 after that.
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In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, he teaches them the assurance of a permanent heavenly dwelling for all who believe. He writes of our earthly homes—our mortal physical bodies—and of our heavenly homes—our immortal glorified bodies, explaining that earthly bodies will perish and decay, but our heavenly bodies will remain pure and undefiled. In 2 Corinthians 5:6-8, he writes specifically of our great hope of immortality not here on earth, but in the presence of Christ himself:
6 So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. 7 For we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.
This is a powerful portion of Scripture. Paul is confirming that while we’re in our earthly bodies, we walk by faith as we cannot see things not of this world. But the moment we’re absent from our bodies, we don’t simply wither into nothingness, we’re immediately present with the Lord, and begin to walk by sight. Let that sink in for a moment. We no longer trust in what we cannot see, we trust in what we actually see.
SIDEBAR » For some context, every belief system in the world—including those that claim to believe in nothingness—proclaims a view of the end of life and reveals what happens upon our death. As for me and my house, we believe in the proclamations and revelations of the Holy Bible regarding all matters of life and death, hence my consistent inclusion of it in my writing. Others, of course, believe in the proclamations and revelations of Muhammed recorded in the Koran, or Buddha’s teachings captured in the Tripitaka and other sacred texts, and yet others believe in the dialectic of Hegel and Marx which will bring us to a stateless utopian communitarian society, and so on and so forth. The list is long! But, I’m not weird for having a belief system, and neither are you!!
I mention Corinthians here because my mom and I spoke of Paul’s explanation of our “resurrection bodies” often, which greatly eased my heartbreak in the early months of her illness.
Make no mistake, my mom was a diehard believer and no one—and I mean no one—was going to feel sorry for her or be sad that she was finishing the race set before her and finally shedding that cancer-filled broken body. Mom set the tone and the terms (attitude) for her journey to the end, which you can read about here, and she was adamant that we respected her wishes. And we did.
The day before my mom died, while she and I were alone, I phoned her pastor and put him on speaker.
The hospice nurse had recently explained that mom could hear everything we said, so we should feel free to share as much, or as little, as we wished during her final hours. I knew how much it would mean to hear from Dr. White and he graciously made himself available with a moment’s notice.
I held the phone to mom’s ear and, I kid you not, the very first thing he said was how joyful it is that she’s finishing her walk by faith and will soon begin her walk by sight. Naturally, the tears began their gentle fall down my cheeks. He didn’t know that mom and I had spoken of this reality! It was beautiful, in every way.
Contemplating the awe and wonder of what mom would both know and see upon her passing was, for me, the most profound moment of her last days.
Happy Mother’s Day mom!
My Mother-in-Law
My mother-in-law, Patricia, preceeded my mom in death by just over 6 months. Losing both of our moms at the same time, more or less, was like a 2x4 to our heads. The spinning is beginning to slow down and we’re catching our breath a bit more with each day. It will take the time it takes. And while the grief still comes in waves, there’ve been unexpected moments for sweet reflection in between.
I’ve always been grateful to Pat for raising my stellar husband so well. Consider this: but for Pat, there is no Chris, and but for Chris, there is no Kelley & Chris, and but for Kelley & Chris, there’s no happily-ever-after for either of us. And that would be totally unacceptable!
But my gratitude is deeper and more nuanced now.
It turns out that Pat taught me a lot about a lot, even though I didn’t realize I was absorbing anything in particular at the time. Aside from how to make world-class chicken salad, she taught me to love fiercely and well, regardless of the circumstances. Loyalty mattered. She taught me to slown down and sit on the porch on warm summer evenings with an iced-tea in hand. She taught me to make a fuss over holidays, just because …
Perhaps most importantly, she introduced me to “little kid” Chris, his childhood and large extended family (all have passed on now), and of his loving-kindness for small helpless creatures, especially wee animals. She and Chris spent a lot of time in their wooded backyard while he was growing up and it became a key learning lab for him. Pat was a teacher and Chris an eager learner; it was a fruitful season of life.
Now that Chris and I have our own home with a wooded backyard, we, too, spend a lot of time outside exploring the little world surrounding our busy lives. Truth-be-told, our wooded yard has become a bit of a learning lab for me too. In fact, We just witnessed a soon-to-be papa wren build a nest in an old planter on our porch (obviously acceptable to mama wren), kept track of their incubating of 6 eggs, and eagerly watched as five of them hatched, fledged, and ultimately left the nest. Sadly, one didn’t make it off the porch, but the others are making all kinds of noise in the trees by the kitchen. It’s the natural cycle of life. Right?
When I met Chris, I had no idea what a wren was (or any other bird save the well-known ones you can’t miss, like hummingbirds or cardinals). Now I remind him to buy birdseed and we watch our feathered friends duke it out on our driveway for the best seeds.
Yes, you can teach an old dog new tricks.
Happy Mother’s Day Pat, my “ma-in-law”!
They say it takes a village to raise a child, but I disagree, it takes a mother and a father, to raise a child. Or in my case three! But today, we celebrate the mothers, all of them fearless, strong, and resilient. Is it even possible for a mother to be anything else when it comes to protecting her children, her family, and her home?
There’s a lot of talk about the proper role of women in our society, but it’s a lot of stupid-talk. I’ve never known anyone as brave, bold, and brilliant as a mother who loves and protects her children. As I said above, mothers are the heartbeat of the family and the center of our civilization. Literally, humanity would end without them. They’re cool cats … and I love that I have three!
Once more … Happy Mothers Day to all the mamas!
xo,
Kelley
May 11, 2025
Your story brings tears to my eyes. So many lessons we all need to hear, learn, and follow. Thank you for sharing your story. Our mothers are a precious gift from God.