While Mother's Day is a day to celebrate and honour the maternal figures in our lives, it's important to note that the holiday can be immensely hard for people who have dealt with loss in their life.
Earlier this month, Maria Menounos’ mother Litsa Menounos passed away after battling stage 4 brain cancer for more than four years.
On Mother's Day, Maria shared a beautiful message of grief, hope, family and love:
"Happy Mother’s Day Mama. To anyone who has lost their moms here in the physical world, I want to share a portion of my speech that I unfortunately wasn’t allowed to deliver at her funeral. Not sure why our churches don’t allow for it, but it is what it is.
"I worked with a very kind woman who knows loss and helps others through, @Diannebgray these last few weeks to prepare for what might happen with my mom. Though I held out hope for a miracle, I also was preparing for any outcome. Mom's soul had its own trajectory and I had to respect that. Dianne asked-what do you love about your mom. I said well my mom was the most selfless person I know. Dianne said, funny you didn’t mention anything about her hair, her nails, or anything physical. The only thing that dies is her cellular body. Her soul is what you love about your mom, she said. And that’s energy. Energy between two people is love and energy is neither created nor destroyed. Science proves that. Our love is everywhere all the time. Dianne taught me that I was going to have to learn a new way to connect with her and hear her: kind of like my connection with god.
"I share this with you so that you know your moms are still with you. I know my mom is and I’m chatting with her constantly.
"My biggest fear in life was always losing my parents. I worked tirelessly to delay that. These last five years have taught me that I will never be alone now. I’m guided, protected and loved from above and now I have the greatest guardian angel around in Mom. I love you forever mom. ❤️"
Maria Menounos, who is currently pursuing having children through surrogacy with her husband Keven Undergaro, talked about keeping her mom “thinking of the future with grandchildren to come” in an April episode of her YouTube show Better Together, which detailed Litsa’s COVID-19 diagnosis in the middle of her cancer battle.
“I said to her, ‘You gotta get strong, you gotta hang on—you’ve got grandchildren coming,'” Maria shared on the show.
Litsa is survived by her husband, Costas, and their two children, Maria and Peter.
*More on GCT: Maria Menounos and her family play ‘Celebrity Family Feud’ (VIDEO)
