"Mother and Me"

Mother’s Love

There are some memories so deeply rooted in the heart that no matter how many years pass, they bloom again with just a scent, a sound, or a quiet moment alone.

For me, it always begins with the smell of jasmine tea.

My mother used to make it every morning—just one cup, steeped carefully, like it was a sacred ritual. She never rushed it, never skipped it. Even when mornings were chaotic and rushed, that cup of tea sat steaming on the counter, grounding everything around it.

I was always watching her. I don’t think she knew that. From the time I was small, I’d study the way her hands moved—always gentle, always certain. Whether she was folding clothes or brushing my hair, there was something in her that made everything feel steady. Safe. Like no matter what storm raged outside, inside her arms, I was untouched.

My mother wasn’t loud with her love. She didn’t always say the words, but she lived them. Every packed lunch, every sewn button, every night she stayed up late with the light on until I got home safe—those were her I love you’s. And somehow, I always understood that.

There was one winter when I got sick with a terrible flu. I must’ve been ten or eleven. Feverish, shaking, unable to sleep. I remember waking up over and over, disoriented and afraid, only to find her hand already on my forehead, a fresh cloth cooling my skin. She never left my side. Not once. She didn’t sleep that night, or the night after. I don’t know how she managed to keep going, but she did. She always did.

That’s the thing about a mother’s love. It’s not flashy. It’s quiet. Fierce. Relentless in the softest way possible.

I didn’t understand that kind of love fully until I became a mother myself.

When I held my daughter for the first time, I cried in a way I never had before. Not from fear, or even joy—but from a kind of knowing. I finally understood what my mother had given me. I understood the weight of it. The selflessness. The strength it takes to be someone’s safe place, day after day, even when your own heart is breaking.

There were so many things I never thanked her for. So many ways she showed up that I took for granted.

But love like hers doesn’t ask for recognition. It doesn’t need a spotlight. It just hopes to be felt, to be carried forward.

And I carry it, every day.

I see her in the way I reach for my daughter’s hand in a crowded place. I hear her in the lullabies I hum softly at bedtime. I feel her when I boil water for tea and inhale the scent of jasmine before the sun comes up.

She lives in me—in every lesson, every comfort, every moment I choose love over anger, patience over frustration.

People often ask what my greatest gift in life has been.

It’s easy.

It’s her.

My mother didn’t just raise me—she raised the way I love. The way I mother. The way I keep going, even on the hard days. Especially on the hard days.

And though she’s older now, her hair more silver than black, her hands a little slower, her love is no less powerful. In fact, it feels even more sacred now—because I know how rare it is. How lucky I am to still have it.

We sit together sometimes, my daughter, my mother, and I. Three generations bound by something deeper than blood.

We laugh, we drink tea, and in those quiet in-between moments, I see it—the way my daughter watches me, the way I once watched my mother.

And I smile.

Because I know she feels it too.

The love.

The legacy.

Her story and mine—forever woven together.