I was sixteen and in Rome with my mother and father. As we walked through the streets at night after supper, my mom pulled us into a church — a move I had grown accustomed to over the course of our trip.

If you could call our trip a pilgrimage, this was the summit for her. The church held an altar dedicated to Our Lady of Childbirth. My brother and sister-in-law had been married all of three years, and she must have prayed daily for a grandbaby. No pressure, right? And so, she lit a candle, she knelt, and she prayed.

I watched, tired and burnt out on churches. I found myself in The Holy City of Rome, but it only made my lack of faith all the more apparent to me. I rolled my eyes and waited. When she was done, we made our way back onto the streets and meandered back to our little place at the Campo de’ Fiori.

Thirteen years later, this memory suddenly resurfaced. On the other side of so many other things, I found so much more in that memory than I did as an angsty 16-year-old. I had narrow-mindedly thought that she was praying merely for a grandchild to be given to her, as soon as possible, right then if He could. But I came to realize that she wasn’t only praying for her first grandbaby from her son and daughter-in-law, but for all her grandbabies, including my son.

She only shared 20 months with him. She often talked about wanting to hear his little voice when he started to speak. It’s one of many things I know she wanted to experience and share with him, with all her grandbabies. And so I cry sometimes that this never came to pass. But I find immense comfort in the fact that she prayed for him, probably every day, for longer than I can know, long before he was a thought in my mind.

The world is held together by the silent prayers of so many, especially mothers and grandmothers. I hope to someday have room in my heart like my mother, who prayed for us, for our future spouses, and for our future children, for our whole lives.

And so this is a prayer of sorts, to the patron saint of grandmothers and mothers.