Since the age of three, I’ve had two mothers. I’ve also had two fathers, but this isn’t really about them.

While divorce in my family isn’t uncommon – my mom’s parents did it, my dad’s parents did it – there was still somewhat of a stigma growing up and a certain embarrassment I carried that mine wasn’t the perfect happy nuclear family I so desperately wanted back then.

The fact that my mother and my Dad’s new wife weren’t exactly friends didn’t help matters any. I had two lives. When I was with my father, he and his wife were my parents, and when with my mom, she and her husband were.

And then there were step brothers and step sisters and half brothers and half sisters and all the explaining that came along with that when we didn’t all have the same name or live in the same house.

But time marched on. My relationship with my step-mother blossomed as I matured, and ultimately she and my mother became friends. (It only took them forty years to realize they had known each other an eternity and genuinely shared common interests – namely the wellbeing of their families, many of whom were one and the same).

This year, I watched a best friend lose his mother, and the pain and sorrow that came with it. Mothers, unfortunately, are not here forever.

So this mother’s day, I celebrate that I have not one, but two mothers I have known all my life.

There’s no shame, only joy.

Two women, very different, who teach me, love me, look out for me and want the best for me.

It doesn’t get luckier than that.