Winning the Mom Lottery and other Jackpots of Love

A month ago, I saw a TikTok that stopped me mid-scroll. A young woman, eyes wide with clarity, said: “One of the lotteries of life is liking your mom, having her like you back, and having her still be around.”

I blinked. Paused. Replayed it. There it was—truth in 12 seconds. No glitter, no filter. Just a gut-punch reminder that some wins in life come long before you’re old enough to realize you’ve won.

One thing I’ve incorporated in my life, as part of an entire rehaul of self (more to come on that, later), is gratitude. Practicing gratitude wherever I am, whenever I can, for however many blessings I am able to count. Not the Pinterest-board kind, but the gritty, bite-your-lip-and-mean-it kind. The kind you practice on the days when nothing fits, nothing works, and no one texts back. Most days, my gratitude list goes something like this:

Thank you for my family. Thank you for my friends. Thank you for a roof over my head and food to eat. Thank you for my life. 

Even on the worst days—no, especially on the worst days—I say thank you.

This practice became a mantra; this mantra became a habit. A reminder on my phone at 5 p.m. for me to mark as completed. “Remember to be grateful,” my past self reminds me. Okay, check!

But after that TikTok, a new line wrote itself: Thank you for my mom.

Because here’s the thing: I didn’t buy a ticket. I didn’t even know there was a draw, and yet I won the most valuable of sweepstakes: my mom. A mom who not only loves me, but likes me, too. Who sticks around. Who answers the phone on the first ring, even if it’s just to hear me spiral over a weird text from a guy named Zach (there’s no guy named Zach, babes, relax). 

Now, before you roll your eyes or close the tab, let me say this: I know not everyone’s lottery numbers came up the same way.

Some have never met their mothers. Some lost them too soon. Some mother’s ache for children they’ll never hold or held once and had to let go. Some were mothered by someone who didn’t know how—or didn’t want—to be gentle with their heart. Mother’s Day can be soft and glowing for some, and for others, it’s a day you know to stay off social media to avoid the sopping love posts, because it scrapes the soul raw.

Over a billion words are written on a mother’s love, and I’m sure a billion more will be. On greeting cards, in the media we consume and on the handmade keepsakes we created in grade school for Mother’s Day that our mother’s cherish to this day. 

And while I could wax poetic about how a mother’s love is like no other, this isn’t just a love letter to my mom. It’s a reckoning. A reminder.

That every mother—yours, mine, or metaphorical—is, at the end of the day, just a girl. Just a girl who tried. Who got it wrong. Who sometimes got it right.

A girl who loved John Hughes rom coms and the color yellow. A girl who maybe had you at 19 or 39, or not at all. A girl who tried to love in the way she knew how, even when it came out crooked.

It’s wild, really—how we expect our mothers to come into this world pre-installed with wisdom and grace, like they should know exactly how to raise us, soothe us, champion us without ever making a mistake. But most of them were learning in real time, Googling feverishly (or reading library books before Google existed), trying to decode the enigma that was you.

I’m not a mom. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But after 27 years of being loved by one (a fabulous, flawed, deeply human one), I’ve realized this: a mother’s love isn’t perfect. It’s not even always present. But when it is real, it shows up in sacrifice.

Maybe she sacrificed her favorite deli sandwich for nine months (farewell, Mike’s Way). Maybe she sacrificed sleep, sanity, and Wednesday night book club with the girls. Maybe she stayed, maybe she left, maybe she chose a kind of love that didn’t look the way we wanted it to.

But maybe—just maybe—it was still love.

Still, love doesn’t always arrive in a package labeled “Mom.”

Maybe it came from the aunt who gave you the sex talk because no one else would. Or, the next-door neighbor who curled your hair for prom. The older sister who raised you when no one else could. The dad who played both roles. The teacher, the coach, the mentor who saw you when you felt invisible.

We are mothered in many forms. And love—real love—is never one-size-fits-all. But there are always other small jackpots of love. 

And if you’ve lost your mother—whether recently or lifetimes ago—I can only offer words that will never be enough: I’m so sorry. I can’t even begin to imagine that kind of pain. It’s like winning the lottery only to be told the ticket expires. The kind of loss that can rearrange the furniture of your soul.

Grief like that doesn’t go away. But a love like that? It doesn’t either.

Losing your mother—while unimaginably hard—does not mean you’re no longer rich with her love. If she loved you–like really loved you–then that love wasn’t just a feeling, it was a presence, an energy. It filled rooms. It lived in birthday voicemails and “text me when you land” messages; in the way you cut vegetables; in the phrases you subconsciously picked up from her and now use without realizing. It was in the way she looked at you like you were the best thing she ever did.

And maybe—I don’t know—I always come back to the law of conservation: energy cannot be created or destroyed. It only changes form.

So where does her love go now? What will you do with it? How will you spend it? How will you invest that kind of legacy in your life?

Because if you were loved by her, then you’re still holding the jackpot. 

So if today is hard, or weird, or makes you want to throw your phone into the sea, I hope you know: you are still worthy of being loved. You are still allowed to feel joy, excitement, grief, resentment, nostalgia, and hope—all at once.

And if, like me, you hit the jackpot—if you have a mom you adore, or even just like most days—tell her. Not because a Hallmark calendar says so, but because some lotteries don’t happen twice. In fact, most don’t. Count. Your. Blessings. 

Tell your mom and the your mother figures in your life you love them. Before you, they were just girls trying to figure it out, turned women doing their best. And now you know: you didn’t just win the lottery—you inherited something priceless.