The first cup of coffee in the morning. The warmth of the sun as it soaks into your skin. The kindness of a stranger. The laughter of a friend. The leaves falling. The birds chirping. The ocean crashing. The lone wildflower blooming in a sea of concrete.

The billions of stars that pepper the night sky. The bunny-shaped cloud swiftly floating by. The moon shining no matter what phase she's in. The music that seeps into your soul. The books you can't put down. The days that feel too good to be true and the nights you pray will last forever.

~ Alysha waghorn

Photography: Maria Jose Urios Pastor

The world kept moving,

but a part of me stayed behind,

“Some souls don’t shatter.

They turn into butterflies

and learn the language of leaving.” 🦋

“Soft things survive too.

Look at butterflies,

still carrying entire skies on their wings.”

“Maybe healing looks like this...

golden at the edges,

even after all the breaking.”

“Not every goodbye arrives as grief.

Some arrive with wings.”

“The heart has strange ways of escaping its ruins...

“Tumhaare haath mein mere paon the,

and then there are people who hold our names like candles when the room has gone dark.

Our biggest cheerleaders are rarely loud in the ways the world measures loudness. They are the ones who remember the small victories we forgot to celebrate.

The ones who send messages that arrive exactly when our confidence has thinned to a thread.

They watch us become and do not flinch at the unfinished chapters.

They know the drafts of us, the tired versions, the almost-gave-up versions; and they still speak of our future as if it is already waiting on another page.

They are the people who tell stories about us when we leave the room: good stories, tender ones, stories stitched with pride. They carry our names carefully and they notice the effort beneath our silence.

A true cheerleader does not only love our victories. They love our attempts. They love the way we keep going after disappointment has knocked us down. They celebrate the courage it takes to begin again, even when beginning again looks unimpressive from the outside.

Sometimes they are parents. Sometimes friends. Sometimes a partner who knows just when we need a helping hand and when we can stand alone.

Sometimes they are teachers, siblings, grandparents: the people who look at us and say, “I think you are capable of more than you know.”

These people remember the dreams we confessed at 2 a.m., and they hand them back to us on the days we try to abandon them. They lend us belief until our own returns.

What a beautiful thing it is to have a cheerleader like that - to be seen not only for who we are, but for who we are still becoming.

And what a responsibility, too, to become that kind of person

for someone else.

*****

We lost my Nan a week ago today. She was one of my biggest cheerleaders, in exactly the way this poem says.

Becky Hemsley 2026

Artwork by Olga Tolstykh

and then there are people who hold our names like candles when the room has gone dark.

Our biggest cheerleaders are rarely loud in the ways the world measures loudness. They are the ones who remember the small victories we forgot to celebrate.

The ones who send messages that arrive exactly when our confidence has thinned to a thread.

They watch us become and do not flinch at the unfinished chapters.

They know the drafts of us, the tired versions, the almost-gave-up versions; and they still speak of our future as if it is already waiting on another page.

They are the people who tell stories about us when we leave the room: good stories, tender ones, stories stitched with pride. They carry our names carefully and they notice the effort beneath our silence.

A true cheerleader does not only love our victories. They love our attempts. They love the way we keep going after disappointment has knocked us down. They celebrate the courage it takes to begin again, even when beginning again looks unimpressive from the outside.

Sometimes they are parents. Sometimes friends. Sometimes a partner who knows just when we need a helping hand and when we can stand alone.

Sometimes they are teachers, siblings, grandparents: the people who look at us and say, “I think you are capable of more than you know.”

These people remember the dreams we confessed at 2 a.m., and they hand them back to us on the days we try to abandon them. They lend us belief until our own returns.

What a beautiful thing it is to have a cheerleader like that - to be seen not only for who we are, but for who we are still becoming.

And what a responsibility, too, to become that kind of person

for someone else.

*****

We lost my Nan a week ago today. She was one of my biggest cheerleaders, in exactly the way this poem says.

Becky Hemsley 2026

Artwork by Olga Tolstykh

They were the background hum of the house.

Shoes off at the door. Say thank you properly. You’ll understand when you’re older.

I didn’t know she was handing me a compass.

Back then, I thought she was simply steering the day - turning us left towards school on time, right towards clean pyjamas, straight ahead through arguments about vegetables and bedtimes. I thought she was captaining a small, ordinary boat called “family,” and I was just a passenger, swinging my legs over the side, trailing my fingers in the water.

I didn’t see the charts she was drawing.

She plotted invisible lines across our kitchen table:

This is how you apologise. This is how you keep going when you’re tired. This is how you love someone even when you’re cross.

She never called them lessons. She just lived them.

And I watched, without knowing I was watching.

I watched how she steadied her voice when she was overwhelmed. How she made room at the table for one more. How she swallowed sharp words and chose softer ones instead. How she carried worry like an anchor - heavy, necessary, unseen by us.

I thought she just knew how to do these things.

I didn’t realise she was teaching me how to read the weather.

It’s only now, standing in my own kitchen with small faces tilted up at me, that I feel the wheel in my hands. Only now, when the sea turns choppy - when there are slammed doors and tears and questions I don’t feel ready to answer - do I hear her voice rise in me like a lighthouse cutting through fog. Be calm. Try again. You’re their safe place.

And suddenly I recognise the route.

The way she would pause before reacting.

The way she would sit on the edge of my bed and smooth my hair, even when she was exhausted. The way she made hard things feel survivable simply by being there.

I find myself saying her sentences. Using her tone. Repeating her reassurances almost word for word.

I used to think strength was loud, that leadership was grand and obvious.

But she showed me it is often quiet: a steady hand on the helm, adjusting by inches, keeping the boat from drifting too far off course.

There are days I feel lost. Days when I am certain I am failing. Days when the map seems smudged and the horizon unclear.

On those days, I realise just how carefully she prepared me.

Not with lectures, but with living. Not with speeches, but with example.

She let me see her mend what was broken. She let me see her apologise when she got it wrong. She let me see that love is not a straight line but a series of gentle corrections. And now, when my children watch me - though they don’t know they are watching - I understand the weight and wonder of that.

They are learning the tides from me.

They are measuring their own voices against mine.

They are storing away my reactions, my patience, my impatience too.

One day, they will stand on their own two feet. They will feel the wheel beneath their fingers and realise that the course was set long ago, in small moments they barely noticed. And perhaps they will understand me in the way I now understand her.

Not as perfect or unshakeable.

But as someone who loved fiercely enough to learn the sea. As someone who stayed up late plotting safer routes. As someone who pretended not to be afraid so that we could be brave.

The compass was always there, pressed quietly into my palm when we crossed the road hand-in-hand. The maps were folded into everyday conversations.

The lighthouse was built from ordinary routines.

And here I am, years later, sailing waters she once sailed, whispering thank you into the wind.

Because I finally understand how much she gave me

when she was simply being my mother.

*****

With Mother's Day approaching this coming Sunday for much of the world, I thought I'd re-share this poem that I wrote back in March. I know it's a long one - I've never been great at editing things out when it comes to words!

Becky Hemsley 2026

Stunning artwork by Fanitsa Petrou

Sunlight leafs through the pages before I do,

spilling quiet across ink and intention.

The coffee holds its breath, dark and patient,

like a thought waiting to be named.

Between sips and sentences,

the world softens into something almost understood.

Good vibes. Good life.

or maybe just—

It’s just a phase, they say—

but even the moon takes its time becoming whole again.

I am learning to soften in my shadows,

to trust the dark knows the way back to light.

Nothing here is permanent—

not the dimming, not the doubt, not even this ache.

Even now, unseen,

Soft petals pressed behind a veil of glass,

like memories that learned to blur instead of fade.

I still see you there—

not clearly,

like a song I almost remember—

the tune slips,

but the feeling stays.

You linger

in the spaces between things,

in pauses,

in breaths I didn’t know I was holding.

Sometimes I think

you’re just around the corner of time—

not gone,

just… delayed.

And it comforts me,

this quiet maybe—

that somewhere,

in a different hour,

we are still laughing

like nothing ever learned how to end.

The moments that stay with you…

don’t knock, don’t announce—

they arrive like a familiar scent

on an unfamiliar evening.

They sit beside you quietly,

like they never really left,

turning silence into something

that almost feels like a voice.

—

The moments that stay with you…

are folded into ordinary things—

a bench, a breeze, a fading light—

waiting for you to notice them again.

And when you do,

they don’t feel like memories…

they feel like pauses