The Jewel of Motherhood

It takes millions of years for a diamond to form. Thousands for other gemstones to emerge from the earth, shaped by pressure, time, and unseen forces.

Motherhood, too, is forged over a lifetime.

It is not only mine but belongs to the generations before me—women whose names I will never know, whose faces have been lost to history. Yet, they are woven into the fabric of my existence, shaping what motherhood is to me, to my mother, to my grandmother.

When I reflect on my journey, it is like a faceted gemstone turning in the sunlight. Each angle reveals a different version of myself. Every child I have carried, nurtured, and let go of offers a new perspective of motherhood. The women in my lineage are there, too, their hands invisibly guiding mine. The ideals, expectations, and quiet burdens of motherhood—carved by culture, love, and loss—are embedded in the stone. And when the light catches it just right, rainbows dance, illuminating the room with a quiet kind of magic. In darkness, it is nothing more than a cool, unremarkable rock.

I have turned the stone many times.

I have been the pregnant teen mother, the married mother, the divorced mother. I have been the devoted stay-at-home mother, the exhausted, despondent single mother. I have been a grieving mother, a gentle mother, a mother who had to step away so she would not break. I have been the mother who baked cookies and kissed scraped knees, and the mother who raised her voice too loud and carried too much weight on weary shoulders. I have been the mother who let her children fly free into the world, the mother who wept with regret, the mother who granted herself grace.

For twenty-five years, I have raised children. But motherhood is more than the years of diapers and bedtime stories. It is stitched into my soul from the time I first cradled a doll and whispered lullabies in a child’s voice. It is shaped by the women I watched—both in life and in stories—who showed me what it meant to love and sacrifice, to rise and endure. It is in the vows I made to mother differently than my own, only to find myself, years later, staring into the eyes of my child and hearing my mother’s voice emerge from my lips.

We try our best. We truly do.

We mother while still trying to understand what it means to be human. We navigate our own healing even as we cradle others in our arms. We fight to break ancestral chains, knowing we cannot sever them all.

Motherhood is like the jewel.

It is formed over eons and revealed in a moment. Cut, shaped, polished by time and trial. Placed under the scrutiny of others who judge our flaws through a magnifying glass—though none are harsher than the judgments we place on ourselves.

But like the gemstone, no two mothers are the same. Each is unique, irreplaceable, her own brilliance shining in different colors and depths.

And like the rarest jewel, motherhood is priceless. A treasure beyond measure.