Tonight, I came home after an eleven-hour shift.

I was exhausted. Mentally drained. Ready to eat something, decompress, and just be left alone.

And, of course, my mom had fresh food waiting for me.

She was hovering around me, asking me if I wanted this, if I wanted that, making sure I ate. And my first reaction wasn’t gratitude.

It was irritation.

Mom, I’m 41 years old.

I want to be independent. I moved back home after my divorce, and sometimes I struggle with feeling like I’ve gone backward. I don’t want to be treated like a child. I don’t want to be taken care of as though I can’t take care of myself.

But my mom is also going through the early stages of dementia.

And tonight, something clicked.

Maybe while I’m desperately trying to move forward, she’s slowly moving backward.

Maybe somewhere in her changing mind, I’m becoming her little girl again.

And suddenly, instead of seeing a mother who was annoying me, I saw this woman standing in front of me, flustered and worried about stepping on my toes, trying desperately to love me in the way she has always known how.

And I thought:

Dear God, Mom. Why do you love me this much, even when I’m being so difficult to love?

Maybe I’ve Been Pushing Her Away Because I’m Afraid

I realized something tonight that is difficult for me to admit.

I’ve been cold with my mom.

I’ve been impatient. I’ve pushed her away. Sometimes I’ve even been mean.

And I think I finally understand why.

I’m scared.

My mom is everything to me.

I’ve lost relationships. I’ve survived divorce. I’m going through heartbreak right now. I’ve learned that people can leave, relationships can end, and somehow, eventually, you survive.

But my mom?

Losing her feels different.

That loss scares me so much that maybe part of me has been trying to create distance before life creates it for me.

As if loving her a little less now could somehow make losing her hurt less later.

But that’s not how love works.

And strangely, the more I’ve tried to push her away, the more she has come toward me.

Especially as she’s gotten older.

Especially as she’s gotten sick.

She just keeps loving me.

She Never Gave Up on Us

When I really think about my childhood and my life, there’s something extraordinary about my mom.

She never gave up on my brother and me.

The world can be unforgiving.

People judge you by your mistakes. People decide who you are based on your worst moments. People become disappointed in you. Sometimes people simply walk away.

But my mom always searched for the good in us.

Even when we screwed up.

Even when we disappointed her.

Even when we couldn’t see the good in ourselves.

She could.

She has spent her entire life standing somewhere between holding onto us and learning how to let us go.

And maybe that’s one of the cruelest parts of motherhood.

You spend years protecting these little humans with everything you have. You feed them. You worry about them. You sacrifice for them. Their pain becomes your pain.

And then one day, they’re adults.

And suddenly you’re supposed to know how to let go.

I don’t think letting go has ever been easy for my mom.

But maybe that’s because loving us has been the most natural thing she’s ever done.

I’m Finally Seeing the Woman Behind “Mom”

My mom has been through so much.

She had a difficult childhood. She married my dad through an arranged marriage when she was very young. She left India and the family she knew to come to America.

She experienced loneliness.

Depression.

Health problems.

A completely different country and life.

And while my dad had his own difficult childhood and his own battles—and has always been someone I’ve considered one of my heroes—I realized tonight that maybe I haven’t given my mom enough credit for hers.

She doesn’t always talk about her pain.

She doesn’t tell her story loudly.

She just kept going.

And somehow, after everything life handed her, she still chose to love.

Not carefully.

Not conditionally.

But enormously.

She even loved the people I loved.

I’ve watched my mom hurt over people who broke my heart. I’ve watched her care deeply about people who weren’t her children simply because they mattered to me.

I never completely understood that.

Tonight, I think I do.

When my mom loves you, she loves what you love too.

The Love I Was Looking For Was Already Here

And maybe this realization is hitting me especially hard because I’m going through a breakup.

My heart has been hurting over romantic love.

I’ve spent so much of my life searching for that great love story—the person who chooses me, stays, fights for me, sees the good in me and loves me even when I’m difficult.

And tonight I realized something almost embarrassingly simple:

I’ve spent my life searching for a love I had already been given.

It was never hiding.

It was never complicated.

It wasn’t asking me to prove myself.

It wasn’t leaving and coming back.

It wasn’t making promises about forever.

It was my mom.

And maybe I’ll never become a mother myself. I’m 41. I don’t know what my future holds.

My mom has always told me:

“You won’t understand how much I love you until you have a child.”

Maybe she’s right.

Maybe there are pieces of a mother’s love I’ll never fully understand.

But tonight, I think I came closer.

I Don’t Want to Waste the Time I Still Have

I don’t know how much time I have left with my mom as I know her now.

And that terrifies me.

But I don’t want fear to steal the time that is still here.

So for the rest of this year—and hopefully far beyond it—I want to love my mom on purpose.

I want to be more patient.

I want to listen.

I want to cherish her.

I want to give her some of the love she has spent an entire lifetime pouring into everyone else.

Because one day, I may give anything to walk through the door after an eleven-hour shift and have someone fuss over whether I’ve eaten.

One day, I may desperately miss being treated like somebody’s baby.

Tonight, I came home thinking I needed space.

Instead, I found perspective.

I’ve spent so much time trying to understand what real love looks like.

Tonight, I think I finally saw it.

It was standing in the kitchen at 9 p.m.

It had fresh food waiting for me.

And after 41 years, it still saw me as its baby.