A Tribute to My Mother at 60: Strength, Peace, and the Prayer She Modeled for All of Us

This post was originally written as a speech I gave at my mother’s 60th birthday concert — a night that brought over 300 people together to celebrate a remarkable woman. The evening was filled with music, laughter, and heartfelt tributes to a mother, friend, and mentor who has impacted countless lives.

As I shared my words in front of our friends and family, I reflected on the strength, peace, and balance my mother has exemplified throughout her life. Here, I’m sharing that tribute with you — a glimpse into the heart of a woman who has shaped me and so many others with her unwavering faith, resilience, and love.

I’m the celebration checker. So, here are the rules: Please stand up if you fit into the category stated. If you’re already standing, raise a hand, if you’re standing and already have a hand raised, raise both hands.

Please stand if Andrea Wilder has ever celebrated any event with you, a child’s party, a baby shower, a birthday, anything…

*85% of people stood up*

Please stand if she’s planned a wedding for you

*Hands go up*

Please stand if she’s ever helped you bury a loved one,

*More hands*

Please stand if she’s given you advice

*More stands, more hands*

Please stand if she’s ever cooked for you

*Hands*

Please stand if she’s ever prayed for you

*Stands and hands*

Please stand if she’s ever made you feel loved

*Standing ovation!*

Tonight, my assignment is to talk about my mother. While that task is not simple, nor easy because so much can be said, what makes it easier is that I don’t have to over-explain because who she is at work and church, is also who she is at home.

If you’ve known her to be glamorous and confident, she wakes up like that. At 5 AM, lashes on, prepared for the day. If you think she’s prayerful and wise, she carries that daily throughout the house and our lives. If you’ve experienced her meticulousness and bossiness, she is indeed on 10 billion at all times as our mother.

So, I’ll say two things about her and one thing to her that I’ve had the pleasure of seeing that y’all haven’t seen. Because, I am abundantly blessed to be her daughter, a privilege and gift from God that I could never take for granted.

So, everybody say three things: Say strength. Say peace. Say balance.

Strength.

Strength is a strange thing for black women. It’s perceived strength that allows people to assume that we can carry more pain than others. It’s perceived strength that reflects the societal pressure that black woman not only should, from our lens, but can, from their lens, work twice as hard to receive half as much. It’s perceived strength that seems to force us to press on without pausing, move from one accomplishment to the next without a moment to reflect, and break glass ceilings without taking a break.

But, fortunately (and unfortunately, in most ways) that perception of strength didn’t come from nowhere. It came from all of our great, great, great, great grandmother’s real strength, and it’s the same strength that makes us hold close the things that hurt us rather than talk about them, let them loose, and display that strength in more emotion-filled ways.

I wrestle with that, generations of black women have and are wrestling with it. And I’ve seen my mother wrestle with it, with more grace and resilience than any person should. And I want to honor you for it.

For the past three years, I have watched my mother do what some others might consider impossible. I watched my mother watch her mother suffer. And I watched my mother watch me suffer.

Greater is He that is in HER than He that is in the world. (1 John 4:4)

I couldn’t have imagined that when God allowed me to move back in with my parents, it wouldn’t have been the catalyst for many of the lessons I needed to continue to mature into adulthood and motherhood.

I watched my mother, day in and day out, care for my grandmother with love, with patience, with diligence, with sacrifice, with hope and with ease when I know for certain it wasn’t easy. She moved her in, she cooked for her every day, and took her to every appointment while working. When she got sick, she went to wherever grandma was every single day, she sat with her, talked to her, and made sure she was well taken care of.

Made plans with doctors, got second opinions, asked questions and wrote everything down. And, when she took her rest, I watched her walk through the hardest moment of her life as if she was floating on air. When I wrote her a post for her 55th birthday, I said “She glides through life as if the universe rests on her side. It doesn’t, but God does.” And it’s true and I’ve seen it.

Ma, you did that.

I watched my mother day in and day out, care for me — through a divorce. I hope I, nor any parent, has to LIVE WITH an adult child who’s suffering, but the level of composure (on most days bc IYKYK she’ll tell you to tighten up real fast, as she did me, and as I deserved to hear 😂) and resolve that she offered me in my worst days are a gift that I could never pay her back for. She listened, she hugged (and, we are not a huggy family), she took the boys if I needed, she supported me, she encouraged me, and she reminded me. She reminded me that I’m hers, and that I’ll always be good because I’m hers.

And AM! Period.

So thank you, Ma. For being strength on display, for helping me see what it looks like to trust God in and for situations out of your control, and for modeling what it means to be an outstanding daughter and mother. I’m better by watching you.

Ok, no more reasons to cry — that’s out of the way.

SAY PEACE.

When some mothers get home, families say peace has ended. When my mother got home, peace had to start.

We were (and still are) forced out of her bed that me, Chey, my dad, and now, Honor and Atreus think is a playground and into our rooms to CLEAN UP! CLEAN UP! WHAT IS THIS? I’M THROWING IT OUT!

I think the garbage is her peacekeeper. 😂

But, she, herself, is our peacekeeper. Cheyenne and my age difference are big enough that we didn’t fight often, but when we did, Ma would chime in to say “sisters don’t fight” and her only-childness really showed

But she instilled a sense of family and serenity among us that we (mostly) hold dear.

She opened her doors, her kitchen, and her home to all of our friends when they needed to find pieces of peace. They’d come with suitcases and would stay for weeks at a time until she graciously forced them to reconcile with their parents and go home.

She let too many of us tear up her house for game nights, movie nights, sleepovers, pre-party getting readies, and would somehow put the house back together in seconds as if we weren’t there.

Ma was, and is, always prepared for random girl talks, which could last hours on end, and still have my friends saying “I need to ask Ma.”

She made space for us to tell her the truth. She received it with love and responded with care, and other things that may not have felt like care at the time, but certainly were needed.

Regardless of the chaos of life, and its challenges, especially through high school and college, she found a way to instill values and shape character without making it seem like that’s what she was doing. She redirected, guided, and corrected in a way where at the end of the day, we knew she was right, even if we didn’t agree at the moment. And her being right would always circle back around, and she would, and will, “I told you so!” in a minute.

She always kept not just a clean, or open, or safe home; she always kept a peaceful home. She is a peaceful home.

SAY BALANCE

Now, I’m not talking to y’all about her — now, Ma I’m talking to you.

For the past 40 years, and I’m sure even before that, because it’s in your nature, you have worked,

You have given,

You have sacrificed,

All in a way that’s beyond what anyone in this room can describe, but everyone in this room has witnessed, which is why we’re all here.

Just last week, I talked to my therapist about my own acts of service love language — I get that from you. And she said to me, “I know you’re a religious person, pray for harmony and balance in your life. Pray that what you give out, because it’s a lot, always comes back.”

That’s my prayer for you.

Everything you touch turns to gold. That includes me, Chey, our father, my kids, this church, every office you’ve managed, every life you’ve spoken into, every celebration you’ve executed, every idea you have.

I pray that God opens up the skies and rains gold on your head. I pray that He releases the hands and hearts of the people whose lives you’ve poured into to abundantly pour back naturally and continuously. I pray that your exceedingly rushes toward you in unexpected ways in surprising manners from every which direction. I pray that you never have to ask again for the things you want and that they’re given to you off of a whisper to God. I pray that windows and doors and mansions of opportunity come to you and that you can answer them without thought and accomplish them without effort.

My prayer for you is balance. To see the fruit of your labor here and now. To experience the fullness of your work in this life. To never give again without receiving back exactly what you gave, and if not, only 100x more.

Thank you for being my mom. Thank you for being our mom. If it were up to us, we would not share you, but we didn’t have a choice in that matter, and everyone in this room is luckier for it.

I love you.

Happy Birthday, Ma!