Grace Carried Us: A Warrior Mother’s Legacy

Health, Wellness, & Renewal

💙☽☾❃🩸

Health, Wellness, & Renewal 💙☽☾❃🩸

May 11th Issue: Happy Mother’s Day

There’s a quiet strength in a mother’s love—a strength that deepens when illness, grief, and faith sit at the table of motherhood. As another Mother’s Day approaches, I find myself reflecting not only on the gift of being a mother but also on the women who carried me through, the children I now guide, and the battles I’ve learned to face with courage.

Motherhood with sickle cell isn’t what most would expect. It’s strength wrapped in exhaustion. It’s waking up in pain but still packing lunches. It’s advocating from hospital beds. It’s praying over fevers, managing crises from the passenger seat of life, and still finding the energy to smile when your child needs reassurance. I live with sickle cell disease—a rare form that’s challenged me in more ways than words can hold.

But the deepest challenge hasn’t just been managing my own health—it’s been raising children with sickle cell trait, carrying the silent worry that life might someday call them to battle too.

I call them my trait warriors. They carry part of my genetic story, but I pray they never carry the full weight of it. I teach them strength. I teach them awareness. I give them language to understand their bodies. But I’d be lying if I said I don’t lay awake at night praying for God’s hands to stay on them—to shield them from the uncertainty I’ve had to live through.

But as I raise them, I think about the woman who raised me. My mother was the blueprint of resilience. She raised two daughters living with sickle cell disease—and I now realize that her strength was forged in fire. She showed up for us in every hospital stay, every late-night emergency, every hard conversation. And when tragedy hit and my sister Raven passed away—taken too soon by complications from a leg ulcer—my mother grieved in the only way she knew how: by throwing herself into work. It was her way of surviving. Her way of protecting her peace while holding everything together.

She didn’t always speak her grief, but she carried it. And in doing so, she taught me that even in pain, mothers keep showing up. Not because they don’t feel, but because they feel everything.

This year, I want to honor her. I want to honor myself. And I want to honor every mother walking through silent storms. Especially those of us in the sickle cell community—those who wear strength like skin but quietly battle the toll that illness takes on our minds and spirits.

We don’t talk enough about mental health during Mother’s Day. But we should.

Because strength doesn’t mean silence. And warrior doesn’t mean you’re not tired. We are mothers. We are warriors. And we deserve space to feel, to grieve, to rest—and to heal.

So if you’re reading this and your heart feels heavy this Mother’s Day—know that you’re not alone. Whether you’re a mom living with chronic illness, a caregiver who’s given all you have, or a daughter missing her mother’s voice—you are seen.

You are loved.

And you are enough.

I pray God keeps His hands on our children, our lineage, and our healing.

And I pray that this Mother’s Day brings peace—not just pretty flowers or cards, but real peace—the kind that lets us breathe deeply and honor how far we’ve come.

🩷To every warrior mom: your love is sacred. Your legacy is strong. And your story is still being written—with grace.

Whitney Lyn