By Albania Cadena — Guayaquil, Ecuador
Not long ago, I heard Christina Koch, a specialist from the Artemis II mission, say something that deeply moved me: “We cannot explore further unless we do some uncomfortable things, unless we accept certain sacrifices.” She was speaking about the Moon. I immediately thought of motherhood — that journey into the unknown where the only reliable compass is love.
I do not want to romanticize it. Motherhood is chaotic, exhausting, and unpredictable. It is Santi crying in his car seat while I drive, countless night awakenings, a body that gives endlessly and also needs to heal. And yet, it is precisely in that chaos that I have found a very concrete way of living the Resurrection: sacrifice is not resignation; it is an active offering, an act of thanksgiving for the lives God has placed in my hands.
No one told me that motherhood would transform my faith in this way. That I would become more sensitive — yes, I admit that now the news affects me deeply in ways I had never experienced before. That I would become more vulnerable, more capable of feeling others’ pain; and that this vulnerability is exactly what the world needs. I no longer ask the Virgin for little things: every morning I ask for at least a kilo of patience. And she, who also knew what it means to love unconditionally, seems to understand me perfectly. Being a mother has taught me more about the Gospel than many years of study.
That same openness has grown within my educational vocation. My students perceive more closeness, empathy, and humanity in my way of teaching. Because educating and raising are, at their core, the same way of loving.
Siamcito is eight years old and is everything I am not: a climber, karate practitioner, surfer — free as the wind. Santi came into the world with his own wild and untamed energy. Both are radically free souls — and they have given me my greatest lesson: my children are not projects to shape, but people to accompany from who they already are.
This is exactly what the Religious of the Assumption taught me: they formed me from who I was, they accompanied me, they welcomed me. Educating is a form of spiritual motherhood.
On this journey, I am not alone. There is Siam, my husband — my Saint Joseph. A present father, the man who sustains our home with a quiet and loving strength.
Being a mother is the greatest title God has given me — the most demanding and the most formative. Perfection is not the goal. Fullness is. This Easter, new life arrived with every chaotic morning, every sleepless night, every moment in which I chose to give myself.