People become single parents for many reasons: loss of a partner, breakdown of a relationship, by choice. One year and five days ago I joined them: Sheryl Sanderberg .

Sheryl Sandberg lost her husband Dave Goldberg in May 2015 and since then has been a single mother to her two children. As Mother’s Day is around the corner, Sandberg wrote a moving Facebook post sharing her experience as a single mother and honouring all other single mothers who are raising their children all by themselves.

“People become single parents for many reasons: loss of a partner, breakdown of a relationship, by choice. One year and five days ago I joined them,” she wrote.

She narrates how often she is reminded of her husband’s absence in her children’s lives. For her, it’s still a “new and unfamiliar world” and many times she wonders what her husband would do if he were in a particular situation. “I did not understand how often I would look at my son’s or daughter’s crying face and not know how to stop the tears.”

“I never understood how often the world would remind my children and me of what we don’t have—from father-daughter dances to Parent Night at school,” she added.