Sheryl Sandberg tugged at the heartstrings with a touching Facebook post reflecting on Mother’s Day as a single mom on Friday, May 6.
The Facebook COO, who penned the bestseller Lean In, about women in the workplace, got sentimental as she looked back on the past year without her husband, Dave Goldberg, who died in May 2015.
“On Mother’s Day, we celebrate all moms,” she began the post. “This year I am thinking especially of the many mothers across the country and the world who are raising children on their own. People become single parents for many reasons: loss of a partner, breakdown of a relationship, by choice. One year and five days ago I joined them.”
On May 1, 2015, Sandberg’s husband died unexpectedly at the age of 47 after falling off a treadmill at a gym while on vacation in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. The cause of death was later revealed to be head trauma and blood loss.
“For me, this is still a new and unfamiliar world,” the 46-year-old, who has two children with Goldberg, continued. “Before, I did not quite get it. I did not really get how hard it is to succeed at work when you are overwhelmed at home. I did not understand how often I would look at my son’s or daughter’s crying face and not know how to stop the tears. How often situations would come up that Dave and I had never talked about and that I did not know how to handle on my own. What would Dave do if he were here?”
Sandberg went on to share a few statistics about the number of households headed up by single parents (30 percent) and how many of those are led by a single mother — 84 percent.
“Being a mother is the most important — and most humbling — job I’ve ever had,” Sandberg concluded. “As we rightly celebrate motherhood, we should give special thanks to the women who are raising children on their own. And let’s vow to do more to support them, every day.”
