When Motherly Love Showed Up Differently

Not every Mother's Day message starts with flowers and fond memories. Mine doesn't.

I grew up without the kind of love you're supposed to get from a mom. There was no soft landing, no arms wide open. I didn't feel seen, or celebrated, or safe. And for a long time, I thought that meant something was wrong with me.

But here's the truth: the love you missed doesn't define you. The love you choose does.

I didn't find that nurturing kind of love until much later in life. When I did, it wasn't romantic at first — it was real. It was my wife, Brandi. Her love was steady. Safe. Unshakeable. She didn't just see me. She stayed with me.

And when someone loves you like that — when someone shows you the kind of care you didn't even know you needed — sexuality starts to matter less than soul.

People ask me all the time how a gay man ends up married to a woman. And the answer is: I never had a real example of what it felt like to be loved without condition until her. And once I tasted that kind of love, it changed how I saw everything — including myself.

That's the psychology people don't talk about.

Some of us didn't grow up adored or protected. Some of us built our identity not in the reflection of love — but in the absence of it. And when a woman comes into your life who loves you like a son, a friend, a partner, a person worth protecting — it breaks open something sacred.

To my Lavender Ladies, especially the ones who've been that love for someone like me: you are the mother I didn't have, the sister I needed, the healer I never expected.

You redefined what womanhood meant to me. You made it powerful, tender, funny, fierce. You didn't judge. You just loved.

And that saved me.