May is the month we celebrate mothers. And yet, if I’m being honest, it’s not a celebration I find easy.

Everywhere I go, I’m reminded—greeting cards lining store shelves, ads promising the perfect gift, restaurants advertising Mother’s Day brunches. It’s inescapable, this constant nudge to honor something I still grieve.

Because for me, Mother's Day doesn’t come wrapped in flowers and fanfare. It carries a weight I’ll probably carry for the rest of my life.

It wasn’t until 2019 that I understood the true depth of a mother’s love—and why it so often walks hand in hand with fear.

It wasn’t until 2019 that I understood the true depth of a mother’s love, and why it so often walks hand in hand with fear.

At the time, my husband and I were living in Cyprus. Life felt good, steady, even charmed. I had a career that allowed me to see the world and paid well. We had just moved into a cozy two-bedroom apartment in Nicosia with a fireplace perfect for hot chocolate debates about whether to watch Die Hard or Harry Potter. And then, on my 33rd birthday, I found out I was pregnant. It was joy, pure and uncomplicated.

Until it wasn’t.

In my sixth month of pregnancy, I learned my mother’s cancer had returned and this time, it wasn’t leaving quietly.

She had first been diagnosed just before my wedding. We were in the kitchen, discussing chemotherapy, when she looked me straight in the eye and said, “Move away. What’s left for you here?” She even joked about her diagnosis. “Only one in a million get this kind of cancer! Can you believe it?” she laughed.

I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I held fast to the belief that if I wanted her to get better badly enough, she would. But she didn’t. And in the thick of what should have been a joyful pregnancy, I learned my mother was dying.

I remember sitting silently on our couch, watching the clouds drift by through the window, unable to move, unable to speak. When my husband found me and asked what was wrong, I couldn’t tell him—not at first. If I said the words out loud, it would make them true. But the thing about love is that, like truth, it always finds a way.

We talked. About what we could do. About how we might help. How much we could send. Whether she could see the baby. My father said she was too weak to fly. And after days of hard conversations, I was forced to consider a cruel possibility: I might never see my mother again.

Then one evening, my husband asked me something that changed everything.

“Would you like to go home?”

“To visit?” I asked, instinctively placing a hand on my belly. “I’m almost seven months—I might not be able to come back.”

He shook his head. “No. I mean we go home. Indefinitely.”

And the truth was, nothing would have made me happier than going home. But fear wrapped itself around every thought. Our unborn son had a better chance at a comfortable life in Cyprus. We had stability here. A future here. But in the face of my mother’s love, all of that suddenly felt small.

We packed our life into boxes in two weeks. Said our goodbyes. And in September, we flew home.

On the plane, I was consumed by fear. What if it didn’t change anything? What if we came back and she still passed? What if we couldn’t find work? What if the baby came early? But the moment we landed in Manila, all the noise in my head stilled. I was home. And she was only a few hours away.

When we saw each other again, the first thing she did was pull me in and press her face into my hair, breathing me in. I didn’t understand the weight of that moment until I had my own child. If love had a scent, it would be that—a mother trying to memorize her child forever.

She passed away the following year. It was the hardest time of my life, made even more difficult by the isolation of the pandemic. I only had a few months with her before lockdowns took over the world. But she got to hold my son in December. She called him her “little star.” She told me she used to wish on the sky just for a chance to hold him. And somehow, I had given her that.

Was it heart-wrenching? Yes. Was it a risk? Absolutely. But I wouldn’t trade that year for anything. It taught me the kind of love that makes impossible choices clear. Because at the end of the day, we don’t always get the ending we want. But choices made out of love, rather than fear, are always the better ones.

In this Mother’s Day issue of PULSE, I hope you’re reminded of the ways our mothers teach us to love—not just through words, but through action, presence, and sacrifice. Just like our cover story on Sandy, whose own journey of motherhood is a testament to grace under pressure and unwavering care. Her story, like so many of our own, reminds us that love is rarely simple, but always worth it.