My Mom passed away on November 10.
I hadn’t written anything about her since writing her obituary—which, if you’ve ever done that, you know is a deeply unnatural act. You’re expected to compress an entire human life into a few polite paragraphs that somehow honor the dead, comfort the living, and avoid starting a family war.
I survived that task. Barely.
But now, as we enter a new year, something in me won’t shut up until I write again.
Quick segue, on Christmas, one of my Daughters-in-Love (I say it that way because sometimes in-laws are akin to outlaws) gave me a wonderful gift: a cigar lighter engraved on one side with the definition of Kaizen and, on the other side, a picture of me holding my Mom’s hand shortly before she died.
I cried when I saw it. And that’s the origin of this post.
This isn’t about closure.
This isn’t about grief stages.
And it definitely isn’t about pretending loss magically turns into inspiration on January 1.
This is about love.
The kind that doesn’t need a pulpit.
The kind that doesn’t threaten you with hell.
The kind that actually works.
This is about my mom, Shirley Day.
A Single Mom, Three Kids, Zero Excuses
My Mother was a single parent who raised three kids—by herself—who all grew up to be both veterans and college-educated professionals. She did this by often working multiple jobs while attending college part-time. She also wasn’t ashamed about the brief periods we spent on public assistance.
(Side note, “government cheese” grilled cheese sandwiches are the best—IYKYK)
Let that sit for a moment.
No trust fund.
No motivational Instagram quotes.
No “God will provide” while refusing to do the math.
Just grit, discipline, compassion, and a deeply inconvenient belief that her kids were capable of becoming something more than their circumstances.
Mom was tough but fair.
Loving but logical.
She didn’t coddle, but she didn’t crush either.
She taught us a myriad of lessons over the years, but as I step into 2026, two stand above the rest—two lessons that carried me through the hardest season of my adult life and quietly dismantled everything religion failed to give me.
Lesson #1: Believe in Yourself (Even If You Don’t Believe in God)
2024 was one of the best years of my life.
After 23 years apart, I reconnected with—and married—my wife. That alone felt like the universe whispering, “See? Not everything you lose is gone forever.”
And then… everything else fell apart.
I lost my job.
I stayed unemployed well into 2025.
My finances took a hit.
My confidence followed.
My emotional health? Let’s just say it entered witness protection.
It was one of the toughest seasons I’ve ever lived through.
And my Mom was there. Like air.
Here’s the thing: my Mom knew I had abandoned Christianity. I didn’t hide it. I didn’t soften it. And she never once judged me for it.
Not once.
No lectures.
No “I’m praying you come back.”
No spiritual guilt grenades disguised as concern.
Instead, during one of my lowest moments, she said something that quietly changed everything:
“I know you don’t believe in God—and that’s okay for you. But I raised you to believe in yourself.”
Let me translate that into plain English:
“You don’t need divine validation to trust your own worth.”
She also reminded me to be kind to myself.
To speak well of myself—to myself.
To stop narrating my life like a prosecuting attorney.
And when I finally embraced that—really embraced it—things started to shift.
My financial picture improved.
My emotional health stabilized.
My internal dialogue stopped sounding like a sermon written by a disappointed deity.
There aren’t enough words to describe how much this mattered.
Believing in yourself isn’t arrogance.
It’s not ego.
It’s not “playing God.”
It’s survival.
And religion, for all its talk about faith, rarely teaches you how to place it where it matters most—inside yourself.
Lesson #2: If You Want to See Change, You Must Be the Change You Want to See
This one is simple.
And deeply inconvenient.
My Mom was politically aware. Sometimes active. Always engaged where her heart lived.
But she didn’t outsource responsibility to slogans.
She believed—like Martin Luther King Jr.—that love was the only force powerful enough to conquer hate.
She also believed that excellence could conquer discrimination.
Now… was she a little optimistic on that last one?
Yeah. A bit.
Because systemic injustice doesn’t crumble just because you showed up early and worked hard.
But here’s where she was right:
You cannot expect external change unless you are willing to perform the internal work that catalyzes the external work that creates visible transformation.
Read that again.
No marches without mirrors.
No justice without introspection.
No revolution without self-examination.
This is where most people tap out.
It’s easier to protest others than confront ourselves.
Easier to condemn systems than dismantle our own internal programming.
Easier to post than to practice.
My Mom lived her values.
Quietly. Consistently. Without applause.
And that kind of integrity doesn’t need religion—it needs courage.
The Root of Both Lessons: Self-Love (The Thing Religion Forgot)
Both of these lessons—believing in yourself and being the change—are rooted in one radical idea:
Self-love.
Not narcissism.
Not ego worship.
Not “manifest a yacht” delusion.
I’m talking about empathy and compassion for yourself.
Because here’s the uncomfortable truth:
You cannot believe in yourself if you hate yourself.
You cannot champion change if you are internally at war.
You cannot love others the way they need to be loved if you refuse to love yourself.
People are attracted to people who love themselves.
People feel safe around people who love themselves.
People feel genuinely loved by people who love themselves.
And yet—religion almost never teaches this.
Confession Time: Religion Taught Me to Hate Myself
Here’s the part that might make some folks clutch their pearls.
During my time as a Christian pastor and bishop, I spent most of my life in a state of self-deprecation.
Publicly humble.
Privately exhausted.
Spiritually anxious.
I was praised for “dying to self” while quietly disappearing.
And I can say this with full clarity now:
That didn’t help me.
And it absolutely didn’t help anyone else.
Religion doesn’t teach self-love.
It teaches self-suspicion.
Self-denial.
Self-surveillance.
You are broken.
You are unworthy.
You are only valuable if approved by something outside yourself.
That is not love.
That is control.
What Actually Changed My Life
When I learned to love myself—not in theory, but in practice—everything shifted.
When I stopped apologizing for existing.
When I stopped outsourcing my worth.
When I modeled self-compassion instead of self-flagellation.
I started seeing the change I always wanted to see.
In my relationships.
In my work.
In my leadership.
In my peace.
And that’s when I realized something devastatingly simple:
My Mom taught me Kaizen long before I ever learned the word.
Shirley Day: My First Kaizen Teacher
Kaizen means continuous improvement.
Small, intentional changes that compound over time.
That was my Mother.
She didn’t preach transformation.
She practiced it.
She didn’t wait for systems to save her.
She worked on what she could control.
She didn’t demand perfection.
She demanded progress.
And she did it all without threatening hell, quoting scripture, or requiring belief in anything supernatural.
Just love.
Just effort.
Just integrity.
My Challenge for 2026
As we dive headlong into 2026, I challenge everyone reading this to embrace these two deceptively simple lessons Shirley Day shared with me:
- Believe in yourself—even if you don’t believe in God.
- If you want to see change, be brave enough to do the inner work first.
Love yourself with empathy and compassion.
Speak kindly to yourself.
Live your values before demanding them from others.
That kind of love doesn’t need religion.
It just needs courage.
Mom, you were my first teacher.
My quiet theologian of self-worth.
My Kaizen inspiration before I ever knew what Kaizen was.
And if love outlives belief systems—
Then you’re still teaching me.
How has your Mother shaped your life? What are some of the greatest lessons she shared with you? Share them in the comments!
Derrick Day is the author of multiple books and the host of The Forward Podcast.
Follow his website or catch him on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube
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