My mom speaks English - she moved to England in the '70s, so

When Ed Weeks said, “My mom speaks English – she moved to England in the ’70s, so she’s fluent in English. We used to speak in Spanish when I was a kid all the time, me and my mom. But when I went to boarding school, I kind of lost it a little bit,” he was not only recalling a personal memory — he was giving voice to a universal story of identity, language, and love. His words carry both warmth and melancholy, the ache of something beautiful slipping quietly away with time. In this brief reflection lies the story of many children of two worlds: those who grow between languages, between cultures, between the voices of home and the voices of society.

In the days of the ancients, language was not merely a tool — it was the soul’s mirror. To lose a language was to lose a bridge to one’s ancestors, to forget the rhythm in which the heart first learned to beat. For Weeks, Spanish was more than a tongue; it was the sound of his mother’s love, the music of childhood, the cadence of belonging. When he says, “I kind of lost it a little bit,” the loss he speaks of is not only linguistic, but spiritual — a soft mourning for the connection that once lived in every conversation with his mother. Yet there is tenderness too, for the memory remains; and through that memory, the bond still endures.

The origin of this quote comes from Ed Weeks’ reflections on his upbringing and heritage. His mother, a woman of Spanish roots who moved to England, carried within her the songs and sounds of her homeland. She passed them to her son as a gift — a secret melody between mother and child. But when he left home for boarding school, the voice of the world outside began to drown out that melody. English, the language of his environment, consumed the space where Spanish once thrived. It is a story repeated across generations — of children who move between lands and, in learning the language of survival, forget the language of their beginnings.

In this, Weeks’ words recall the story of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, the Kenyan writer who once abandoned his native Gikuyu language in favor of English, only to later return to it in defiance of colonial influence. He realized, as Weeks does in gentler form, that to lose one’s mother tongue is to lose part of one’s cultural inheritance — the way one dreams, the way one loves, even the way one remembers. For a mother’s voice in her first language carries a tenderness that no translation can capture. It is not just sound — it is memory made living, the echo of generations whispered through syllables and songs.

But there is another truth hidden within Weeks’ reflection: though language may fade, love does not. The bond between mother and child does not depend on words alone. Even when the shared language weakens, the affection remains strong — communicated through laughter, gestures, glances, and the silent understanding that only family knows. The ancient philosophers taught that connection of spirit transcends the barriers of speech; and so, even when the words grow dim, the heart still remembers the rhythm of its first teacher — the mother.

There is also a lesson here about preservation — of heritage, of identity, of the threads that tie us to our origins. In losing his Spanish, Weeks joins countless others who realize, too late, that the language of childhood is a sacred inheritance. Yet his story also invites us to act: to reclaim what was lost, to honor the languages of our mothers, our fathers, our elders. For each word remembered is a step back toward wholeness; each phrase spoken revives not only vocabulary, but lineage. To speak a mother’s tongue, even imperfectly, is to call her presence into being once more.

So, my listener, take this teaching into your heart: do not let the voices of your beginnings fall silent. Whether it is a language, a custom, a song, or a story, protect it as you would protect the flame of an ancestral lamp. Return to it often, for it holds the memory of who you are and where you come from. And if you have drifted far, as Ed Weeks did, know that it is never too late to return. For the heart, like the ear, remembers the sounds that first taught it to love — and through them, we find our way home again.

Thus, through the gentle wisdom of Ed Weeks, we are reminded that language is more than communication — it is connection. It is the thread between the past and the present, between mother and child, between memory and identity. And though the forest of life may scatter us far from our roots, the tongue of our mother remains the compass that points us home.