Mother’s Day – May 10, 2026

Today’s devotion will be a little different. I’m taking a trip back in time to May 10, 1974. It was a sunny, warm Friday afternoon.

Connie, a single mother of three, was fixing herself a bowl of cereal while waiting for her children to arrive home from school. It was a typical day. She went about her usual routine—cleaning the house and deciding what to fix for supper. Since she wasn’t working that day, she attended to the home she’d made for her family at her own pace.

Suddenly, her six-year-old son came running through the door. He was out of breath, having just run four blocks. He was animated and likely terrified; he had just witnessed a tragic accident. Both of his sisters, three other children, and a young mother had been hit by a car.

Once Connie finally got the information from her son, she ran out the door with him in tow. She arrived at the scene in shock and horror. Because she did not drive or own a car, she rode in the ambulance with her children. At the hospital, her daughters were in separate rooms, leaving her to run back and forth between the two.

Eventually, the girls were checked out. One would be fine; the other was in critical condition. This young mother, who only hours earlier was likely wondering how to keep her children occupied for the summer, was now doing everything she could just to hold herself together.

She had been trying to find her identity for three years, ever since the divorce. It wasn’t as if she had much choice; her husband had found someone else and put her and their children on a plane from Texas to West Virginia. She had been visiting different churches and denominations, trying to find a place for herself and her family.
After the accident, a church member informed her that this was her fault—that God was using her children to punish her for something she had done.

My mother never stepped foot in a church again.

That summer, friends and family took turns driving her to and from the hospital. The oldest child remained there for two and a half months, while the two younger children spent the summer with their father in Texas.

Some would say this young mother was dealt a bad hand. She had a difficult childhood, beginning when her own mother committed suicide when Connie was only two years old. Connie never forgave her mother for this; she felt abandoned, believing that if her mother had loved her enough, it wouldn’t have happened.

She had two older sisters who tried to look out for her, but they had to look out for themselves, too. Their father remarried, which gave them a stepsister and, eventually, a half-sister. Their new mother sided with her own children and treated her stepchildren differently. As soon as they finished high school, the three older girls moved out as quickly as possible, marrying or joining the military as a means of escape.

Connie eventually remarried and had two more children with her new husband. She was happier than she had ever been—until he also had an affair and left. She was devastated and became very bitter, finding herself older and raising children alone once again.
Connie had her moments of happiness, but they were few and far between. She died of cancer in 2008 at the age of 64. While she didn’t have the life she thought she would, she did the best with what she had.

Connie was my mother. She wasn’t perfect, but she was my mama. She loved us in her own special way, even when she couldn’t love herself.

I didn’t intend for this story to go this way, but it’s the truth. I still have her number in my phone. Sometimes I find myself scrolling past it—a silent, digital tether to the woman who taught me how to survive.

I still remember the phone calls from when I was a single mother of two at the same time she was, though mine were much younger. Two mothers, twenty years apart in age and a thousand miles apart, living very similar lives.

This is not a story of tragedy, but a story of survival and perseverance. My mother raised five children. Some may say we’re a little messed up, but we are all self-sufficient, productive, and strong. She raised us to be independent because she wanted us to have a better life than she had.

Whether her ways were right, wrong, or somewhere in between—she did it.

Mom, I know your life was hard, but through it all, I wouldn’t change a thing. Through the struggles and the pain, there were also happy times. I still miss you, and I will see you again.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.

I love you.