Madonna’s Emotional Mother’s Day Tribute Discusses the Last Time She Saw Her Late Mom

Madonna shared an emotional Mother’s Day tribute celebrating her late mom and reflecting on the trials of motherhood.

Madonna, 65, shared a photo of the Celebration Tour via Instagram on Sunday, May 12. In the shot, she stands below a looming, sepia-toned photo of her mother and namesake, Madonna Louise Ciccone, who passed away in 1963.

Madonna wasn’t yet six years old when Madonna Louise, then 30, succumbed to breast cancer. In the caption, Madonna took a moment to grapple with the last time she saw her mother.

“I stood on stage for 81 shows staring up at the beautiful face of my mother and wondering what she must’ve been thinking as she waved goodbye to me from her hospital window. I stepped into the station wagon and shut the door not knowing it was the last time I’d see her,” she wrote. “Nobody told me my mother was dying — I just watched her disintegrate mysteriously and then she disappeared and there was no explanation except that she had gone to sleep.”

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Madonna went on to explain that each night of her year-long Celebration Tour, she asked for her mother’s blessing. She also shared that the tour ultimately brought her closer to her own children. (Four out of six of Madonna’s children worked on the tour every night, including son David, 18, daughter Mercy, 18, and twin daughters Stella and Estere, 11. She also shares daughter Lourdes, 27, with ex Chris Leone and son Rocco, 23, with ex Guy Ritchie.)

“I became very close to my children on this tour. We clung to each other in the long hours we worked and struggled. They helped me manifest my dreams,” she wrote.

Madonna also spoke on motherhood in general, saying that even pop stars are still winging it when it comes time to raise little humans.

“No easy way into the motherhood game, no manual or university,” she continued. “Just trial and error and learn and succeed and then fail again. Finally the realization that they were raising me and not the other way around.”

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Madonna previously praised her “incredibly talented” children for their hard work on tour via Instagram last month, saying they “carried [her] through this Journey each of them bringing their own unique talent to the state.”

She added, “Rehearsals began over a year ago with almost a 2 month break waiting for me [to] recover from a near death experience.” (Madonna experienced a serious health scare in June 2023 when she developed a bacterial infection and was put into a medically induced coma.)

“They never stopped practicing … they never stopped cheering me on and supporting me,” she wrote of her children in April. “There [sic] enthusiasm kept me Going!!! They were also going to school and rehearsing every night. I am so very proud of all of them.”