A real estate broker, an auctioneer and a columnist walk into a bar. Not really, but the setup is similar. I was standing with two friends, a man who sells real estate and a woman who appraises art and manages auctions. The three of us have known one another and one another’s families for years.

The man immigrated to the U.S. from Central America in his late teens and has brown eyes and brown skin. The female friend has lived in the Midwest all her life and has blue eyes and ivory skin.

My male friend nodded to our mutual friend standing next to him and asked if he had ever introduced me to his mother. He clarified that she is one of his adopted mothers. She nodded yes; indeed, she was.

When he arrived in the U.S. decades ago, he took a job selling windows. She saw his talent, pulled him aside and told him he shouldn’t be selling windows—he should be selling real estate. She helped launch what would be a very successful career.

He said he sends her a card every Mother’s Day. She said, yes, every year she receives a Mother’s Day card from this guy. Such an acknowledgment is very sweet, although if I were her, I might press him for a tract of land.

I had no idea she was his “adopted mother” and how she had turned the course of his life.

The essence of motherhood is nurturing. You don’t have to physically give birth to take a fledgling under your wing.

I knew a woman who often came home and found boys other than her own in her house. Theirs was the “go-to” house — the house with snacks, sodas, games, an open door and a warm welcome. When the house was full of teen boys in the evenings, she stayed up late ironing, just to keep watch and be available. A number of men in their mid-50s attended her funeral. They were middle-aged now, some sporting some gray hair and nearly all of them choking back tears as they recalled video games, potato chips and what this woman with an open home and open heart had meant to them.

Aunts often become adopted mothers as well. I know an aunt who bought T-shirts for her young nieces that said, “I have the coolest aunt ever.” The fun is a two-way street.

Family friends, neighbors and advocates often fill the role of nurturers through relationships wallpapered with listening, laughing, playing, talking and simply being together.

Older women can serve in the role of mothers to younger women. Providence often brings adopted mothers onto the stage at the right time in the right place.

If you ever had, or have now, an adopted mother in your life, Mother’s Day might be a good time to pick up the phone and say, “Remember me? Thanks!”

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