Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:14] Welcome back to Unshut Yourself, powered by the Corpus Christi Originals Podcast Network. I'm Ben deleon.
[00:00:21] As of this recording, it's Mother's Day.
[00:00:25] And for a lot of people, that means flowers, phone calls, family dinners, and celebrating the women who raised us.
[00:00:34] But for some of us, it's different.
[00:00:38] This is the first Mother's Day since my mom passed. And I'll be honest with you, there's a strange weight to moments like this.
[00:00:48] Not just because someone is missing, but because you suddenly realize how much of who you are was quietly built by them.
[00:00:57] Even in ways you don't fully understand at the time.
[00:01:01] I think one of the things we don't fully appreciate until we get older is how much our mother shaped the emotional foundation of our lives.
[00:01:10] Not just through the big moments, but through the thousands of small ones.
[00:01:15] The talks, the sacrifices, the rides, the whirring, the encouragement, the discipline, the constant presence.
[00:01:26] So much of what mothers give to their children happens quietly.
[00:01:30] And because it happens quietly, we sometimes mistake it for something ordinary.
[00:01:36] But it isn't ordinary. It's architecture.
[00:01:40] Mothers help build the emotional structure that we spend the rest of our lives standing on.
[00:01:46] And losing your mother changes something in you.
[00:01:49] It doesn't matter how old you are, there's a part of you that still feels like somebody's child.
[00:01:56] And when they're gone, you feel that absence in places you didn't expect.
[00:02:02] Memory, a holiday, a certain meal, a phrase they used to say. Even silence can feel different.
[00:02:11] And this being my first Mother's Day without her, I found myself thinking less about the moment she passed and more about what she left behind.
[00:02:21] Because that's the thing about good mothers. They leave pieces of themselves in the people they loved, in the lessons they taught and the standards they set in the way their children love other people.
[00:02:35] And even now, parts of my mother still show up in me every day.
[00:02:40] My thoughts and my reactions, good or bad.
[00:02:45] Sometimes in the things I hear, that I say out loud, that sound exactly like her.
[00:02:51] And I think that's one of the most powerful things about mothers. Even after they're gone, they continue shaping the world through the people they raised.
[00:03:00] And it doesn't stop with the children.
[00:03:03] It reaches the grandchildren, too.
[00:03:06] Because the love, value, strength, kindness, resilience, those things travel down through the generations.
[00:03:15] A good mother creates ripples she may never fully see in her lifetime.
[00:03:20] And years later, those lessons still exist at dinner tables, in family traditions and how people care for one another and how they survive hard times.
[00:03:33] That's legacy.
[00:03:35] Not money, not status. Not accomplishments.
[00:03:39] Legacy is what continues living in people after you're gone.
[00:03:43] And mothers understand that better than almost anyone.
[00:03:49] So today, I just want people to remember something.
[00:03:52] If your mother is still here, talk to her. Spend time with her.
[00:03:57] Ask questions.
[00:03:59] Listen to the stories you think you've heard a hundred times.
[00:04:03] Because one day you'd give anything to hear them again.
[00:04:10] And if your mother is gone, I hope today reminds you that love doesn't completely disappear.
[00:04:17] Grief exists because love existed first.
[00:04:21] And the lessons, the warmth, the care they gave you, those things don't vanish. They continue through you in the way you live, the way you treat people, in the way you love your own family.
[00:04:39] This Mother's Day is different. For me.
[00:04:42] There's grief, sure.
[00:04:43] But there's gratitude also, because even though my mother is gone, her influence isn't.
[00:04:51] And I think that's true for all great mothers.
[00:04:54] Their hands may eventually leave the world, but their fingerprints never do.
[00:05:02] The greatest thing a mother leaves behind is herself living quietly inside the people she loved.
[00:05:13] I'm Ben De Leon, and this has been Unshock yourself until next time.
