When I was a little girl and someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I never hesitated. I didn’t dream of empires or impressive careers. I simply said, “a mum.”

That was all I ever wanted. Not just in name, but in the deepest, most wholehearted way. To love. To nurture. To create a home that felt safe and warm. To belong to my children, and for them to belong to me.

And I was blessed. I was given exactly that.

Mother’s Day always carries me back to those golden mornings. The bedroom door would open and laughter would spill in before I was fully awake. Four little bodies tumbling into my bed — warm feet pressing against me, tiny limbs wiggling and tangling in a joyful chaos of love. Their eyes sparkling with mischief and delight as they carefully balanced breakfast trays far too big for their small hands.

There were the handmade cards — crayon scribbles, crooked hearts, glitter glued with great determination. Masterpieces, every one of them. And the treasures from the school Mother’s Day stall. In their small hands, they carried me the world.

I can still see their faces — that pride, that anticipation, the pure joy of giving. No gift before or since has ever felt quite the same.

Those mornings were precious. There were many of them, and yet somehow they slipped through my fingers like mist. I didn’t realise at the time how quickly they would become memory. Perhaps that is the quiet ache of motherhood — you are living the most beautiful days of your life even as they are already passing.

Now I watch those same little ones — grown, steady, building lives of their own — and I feel a different kind of joy. Softer. Deeper. Filled with gratitude. Some of them now wake to their own version of Mother’s Day mornings: warm feet, wriggling limbs, sticky kisses, breakfast on a tray. The circle continues, gently and faithfully.

And here I am, preparing a long table at home — laying out plates, folding napkins, setting a place for each of them. Because no matter how big they grow or how far they travel, I will always be the mum who waits with a full heart and an open door.

Being a mum isn’t simply something I became.

It is who I am — woven into every year, every wrinkle, every memory, every meal prepared with love. It lives in the way I watch the driveway when I know they’re coming. In the way my heart still rises at the sound of their laughter.

And as the door opens and that familiar joy spills in once more, I realise something quietly and completely:

I already became everything I ever wanted to be.