Madonna is sharing a reminder that Mother’s Day can be hard for some people. While honoring her late mom and namesake on Sunday (May 12), the pop star opened up in an emotional Instagram post about how she wasn’t aware of the extent of her mom’s fatal illness as a child.

“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,” she wrote, sharing photos of her mother’s image on stage at one of her recent Celebration Tour shows.

“I stepped into the station wagon and shut the door not knowing it was the last time I’d see her,” she continued in her post. “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 which explains My Tumultuous relationship with sleep.”

The “Material Girl” singer’s mother, Madonna Louise Ciccone, died at age 30 after a battle with breast cancer in 1963. The future superstar was just five years old when it happened.

“When I stepped out on the stage and looked up at my mothers face every night,” added the seven-time Grammy winner, “I said hello I said goodbye. I said Thank you. I hope you’re proud of me. I said Please protect me and keep me sane.”

Now 65, Madonna is a mother to six kids, including Lourdes Leon, whom she shares with ex-boyfriend Carlos Leon, and son Rocco Ritchie, whom she welcomed with ex-husband Guy Ritchie. She and the director went on to adopt David shortly after the musician founded her charity organization Raising Malawi in 2006. Later, she adopted Mercy, then Stella and Estere — all three of whom are also from Malawi — as a single mother.

“Tonight all of my children sleep Under one roof which is Rare and comforting,” Madonna noted in her post, which also featured photos of all of her kids. “They grow up too fast and spin out in different directions And yes I have a hard time letting go … 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.”

The post comes about a week after the Queen of Pop wrapped the Celebration Tour with a record-breaking show at Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach Saturday (May 4), an event that saw more than 1.6 million fans show up for the free performance. The concert put a bow on several months of performances following the tour’s kickoff in London in October.

All four of Madge’s youngest kids joined her as fellow performers on the trek, for which she had Mercy accompany her on piano during “Bad Girl,” duetted with David on “Mother and Father” and danced with twins Stella and Estere to “Don’t Tell Me.”

“They never stopped practicing… they never stopped cheering me on and supporting me,” the star gushed about her children in a recent post. “They were also going to school and rehearsing every night. !! . am so very proud of all of them.”