Every Saturday since February 24, 2022, we have gathered. Through snow and heat, through grief and stubborn hope, we stand with Ukraine.
But on the second Saturday of May, something tender joins us. The rushnyky come out, strung between us like a quiet alphabet of love. Each one was stitched by hands we knew or hands we never met. Each carries the warmth of a mother who once threaded a needle and thought of someone she loved.
І рушник вишиваний на щастя, на долю дала…
“And she gave me an embroidered rushnyk: for happiness, for destiny.”
These are not only the words of one mother to one child. They are the words of every mother in Ukraine right now, holding her children closer through a fourth year of full-scale war. They are the words of mothers in Kamloops and across Canada, in Norway, in every place represented by a flag we raised today.
Today I think of my own mama, Lidia, who taught me what it means to keep showing up. And I think of all the mothers who have shaped me beyond birth, because motherhood, I have learned, is wider than biology. It is a way of loving.
I think of my Canadian Mama, Audrey, who took a young Ukrainian newcomer under her wing and never let go, who mentored, fed, encouraged, and believed in me when I was still finding my feet on this land.
I think of my God Mama, Lesya, whose blessing has followed me across decades and continents.
I think of my Milk Mama, Marichka, whose first nourishment is woven into who I am, a Ukrainian tradition that reminds us a child can be loved into life by more than one woman.
And I think of all the mother figures among us: aunties and grandmothers, foster mothers and stepmothers, teachers, neighbours, elders, friends, those who never had children of their own but mothered everyone who came through their door. Those who mother by birth. Those who mother by choice. Those who mother by simply refusing to let someone walk alone.
A child is not raised by one mother. A child is raised by every woman who ever paused to braid her hair, wipe her tears, pack her lunch, pray over her, scold her gently, or stand beside her at a peaceful gathering with a rushnyk in hand.
Thank you to everyone who came today. Thank you for the flags you raised and the rushnyky you carried out of cedar chests and grandmother’s drawers. Thank you to the mothers among us, the mother figures, and to those who walk today carrying the memory of mothers no longer here.
May happiness find you. May destiny be kind. And may every embroidered thread remind us that love, once given, is never undone.
Happy Mother’s Day to all who mother: by birth, by choice, by milk, by blessing, by presence, by prayer.
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