I find that, all too often, when I need some form of advice, my mother always gives the best ones.

Early this week, I made a very difficult decision– something she knew I’d do eventually, despite my determination to initially go in a different direction.

I then asked her: “Mother, you knew I would come to this conclusion. Yet you still let me do my own thing. Why?”

Mother: “Well,  I didn’t want to interfere with your life, I wanted you to see for yourself what was best for you.”

Me: “But you knew this would happen. How did you know, mom? How do you always know what I’m going to do, how I’m feeling about this and that, what so-and-so is going to do or react, before any of it happens? How do you accurately predict the outcomes in situations you yourself were never in? How do you know me better than I know myself?”

At this point, she gives me one of her incomparably beautiful smiles and and says,

“Aya, I carried you in my womb for nine months. How can I not know you?”

Truly, mother knows best, and I don’t think I will find another living person in this entire universe that I can love more than her. My mother, my mother, my mother.

–A.S.