An ode to my Juri and yours.

Every year, I sit down to write a letter or type a heartfelt message to the woman who gave me my first breath. But this year, I realized that the lessons she taught me aren’t just my inheritance. They are a blueprint for the kind of grace the world needs right now.

She’s not only my mother but also my friend,  my dear Juri, and a woman who has shown me what sincere faith is and what it can do. Her silent acts of devotion and the many times she has stood up for her girls, her family, and her friends when they felt small are just the tip of the iceberg.  And so, every year, I try to make it special,  but I don’t think there are words or actions special enough to express how grateful and blessed I feel that she is my mother.

Motherhood is a universal language spoken in the dialect of sacrifice. It is the art of being the floor when someone needs to stand and the ceiling when they need to be sheltered. They build, create, and simplify emotions with a reassuring hug. One thing I’ve heard from my mom for the past 26 years is that as long as I believe God is at work, everything in the world is possible.  Those words always provide me with a different kind of strength,  maybe because she is the one who says it or maybe because I have watched her believe the same.

Mothers are the strongest people we know. They have seen us through different versions of ourselves and still choose us. There was never a manual for motherhood, yet they execute it well. And if God said, “Choose again,” I would choose her every time.

So, to the woman who taught me the weight of my own voice, and to every mother and mother figure, whether with us or in our hearts, who has ever wondered if her quiet efforts go unnoticed: they do. You are the unseen architecture holding up the world.

Today and always, Happy Mother’s Day.

Dedicated to Juri, my first teacher and my greatest friend.