A letter for the women whose love has endured the unthinkable:
How are you doing on this beautiful evening? I hope you’re well, and that this blog finds you wrapped in a little peace.
Tonight I’m sharing Letter Two of my 7‑day Mother’s Day series. This one was unexpectedly hard for me to write. When I went back to reread it, I cried — not a gentle tear, but the kind that rises from a place you didn’t realize was still tender.
I’ve never lost a child, so at first I didn’t understand why this letter hit me so deeply.
But when I sat with my tears, I realized something. While I haven’t walked that road myself, someone I love has. A dear friend of mine lost her grown daughter two years ago, and witnessing her navigate that kind of grief changed me. I saw her strength, her heartbreak, and the way she kept moving through the impossible because there was no other choice.
It reminded me of that moment in Steel Magnolias when M’Lynn says she was there when her daughter came into the world and there when she left it. My friend lived that in real life. And even though her daughter was 44, the loss was no less devastating. A mother’s love doesn’t measure time — it measures connection.
No parent should ever have to bury their child. And yet some mothers do. They carry a grief that reshapes them forever.
This letter is for them.
For the mother who loves deeply but quietly, because her story has chapters she rarely speaks aloud. For the mother who has rebuilt herself more times than she can count. For the mother who is still learning how to receive the same tenderness she gives so freely. For the mother who is grieving someone, or something, or some version of life she thought she’d have by now. For the mother who is healing in real time.
There are mothers who move through the world with a softness that wasn’t born from ease, but from endurance. Women who learned to hold their own hearts gently because life didn’t always do the same. Women who show up anyway — for their families, for their communities, for themselves — even when no one sees the weight they’re carrying.
You are not behind. You are not forgotten. You are not invisible.
Your story is sacred — not because it is perfect, but because it is true.
And if this season feels tender, or complicated, or heavier than you expected, I want you to know this: you are allowed to honor your heart exactly as it is. You don’t have to perform joy. You don’t have to pretend strength. You don’t have to hold everything together alone.
Let this be the year you let yourself breathe. Let yourself soften. Let yourself be held — by memory, by meaning, by the quiet ways love still finds you.
Motherhood, in all its forms, is a living legacy. And your legacy is still unfolding.
Evolving in grace,
Dawna‑Rae 🦋 may your heart return to itself again and again
P.S. If you’d like to follow the full 7‑day Mother’s Day series, you can also find it on my Substack.
Have you evolved today? 