Finding traces of my mother’s pride in unexpected places
I hope this doesn’t sound strange, but sometimes I find myself living vicariously through Blue Ivy Carter. Every time I see a video of Beyoncé watching her—really watching her—with that face only mothers have when they can’t believe they got to make someone so extraordinary, I feel something twist in my chest. It’s not envy; it’s more like recognition, like my heart knows exactly what that kind of love feels like even though I never got to grow up in it.
Because I know deep down, without a shred of doubt, that would’ve been my mom with me. She would’ve been the kind of mom who was completely gagged out about everything I did. The loudest clapper in every audience. The one who bragged about me to strangers in grocery store lines, who told every extended relative about my smallest wins like they were headline news. She would’ve texted me relentlessly screenshots of my photos with “That’s my baby!” in all caps, little voice notes hyping me up before big days. I imagine her being that presence I could never escape, but never wanted to.
Instead, I only got flashes of that love. A few memories of her smile, the way her eyes lit up when I said something clever or bold. I was too young to hold onto the rest, too young to know that what I had was temporary. So now, when I see Beyoncé looking at Blue like she’s both her entire world and her one of her proudest achievements, it feels like watching the life I was meant to have playing out in someone else’s story.
And maybe that’s the quiet miracle of it all. How even without her here, my mom still finds ways to remind me that her love didn’t die with her. I see it in moments like this, reflected in someone else’s life, reminding me of what could have been but also what still is. That love still exists in me, stitched into who I am. It shaped me even without years of mothering to guide it.
Watching Blue Ivy and her mom doesn’t just make me ache for what I lost—it makes me realize that my mother loved me just as fiercely, even if the world didn’t get to witness it. And somehow, knowing that lets me carry both the grief and the love forward, living the life she didn’t get to finish but always wanted for me.
