If I’m honest, I didn’t really pay that much attention to Mother’s Day until a few years ago. Now granted, I did in the sense that I would celebrate my own Mum, Mother-in-Law, and close friends who had kids, but in terms of my own personal buy-in to the day’s celebrations, there was very little. I didn’t have any great emotional attachment to the day, and it didn’t hold many expectations with which it could let me down by.
That all changed for me in 2016 when Phillip and I officially began our journey to starting our own family. We fell pregnant for the first time in September and suddenly our hearts and understanding were thrust open to this world of parenting, expansive love and devastating loss. Within a six month period we had two pregnancies and an equal amount of miscarriages. It was heart breaking, and I suddenly began to experience Mother’s Day in a whole new way.
This year will be the second time that I’ve been able to celebrate this holiday with a gorgeous bouncing baby to fill my arms with, and that truly is a joyous and wonderful feeling, but there is still a part of my heart that feels the ache of loss and disappointed expectations. I feel it from the scars of my own journey, and I feel it for my friends who have found themselves walking down a similar path of pregnancy or child loss. I feel it for those who I know have lost their mums, and for friends whose relationships are strained or nonexistent. None of us asked to experience such things, but here we all are with so many stories to tell.
As I scrolled through my Instagram feed this morning, a post from my friend, Ashley Abercrombie stood out to me:
Tender. That’s the word. That’s the meaning that encapsulates how my heart ends up feeling on this day. Yes, even with my fulfillment of promise sleeping peacefully in the other room, my heart still feels the softness and delicateness of holding both loss and deep gratitude.
Before entering motherhood, I had so many ideas and expectations of what it would feel like to be a mum on Mother’s Day. I imagined that it would be a bit like your birthday, or being a queen for the day. I dreamt of flowers appearing everywhere and being waited on hand and foot by adoring family members. I pictured sunshine and rainbows and everything peaceful and sweet. I was sure that my heart would feel complete and the sense of bliss would be Hallmark worthy. That is the safety and beauty of dreams; they hold no shadows.
Now, to be fair, there really is something wonderfully special about Mother’s Day. I can’t walk through our neighborhood with Freedom without someone calling out congratulations to me, or wishing me a great day. My phone lights up with messages from friends and family near and far, all celebrating me with words and pictures. My adoring husband does make me breakfast in bed and treats me with extra loving care. And although he does not understand it yet, Freedom does shower me with love, and hugs and kisses.
And yet, as seems to be the ever-continual discovery: life is full of tension. In the same breath of celebration, grief is felt, and as we bask in the presence of others, we are aware of those whose absence we miss.
In moments like these, I’ve learnt to give my heart the space that it needs to acknowledge and feel all these things, to be present with the tension, and not push away the uncomfortable. I’ve never been too good at hiding how I feel, so now I just feel it and own it, even if I wish the feeling were different. I would rather be authentic with my journey than try and fake my way through because I somehow think it is required of me.
Maybe you feel tender today too. Maybe you resonate with the tensions. Maybe you’re wondering if you’re alone. Maybe you’re trying to figure out how you feel. I haven’t yet discovered the remedy for this ache, but I do know that I/you are not the only one who feels it. My hope is that these words will act like an embrace to meet you where you’re at, to remind you that it’s ok and life is not linear. Maybe it would be easier if we could only feel one emotion at a time, but then again there would be no comfort in our grief, no joy to strengthen us through our sorrow, no laughter to chase away our tears.
So today I really do celebrate you, wherever you are at in the journey of motherhood, and I also hold space for the shadows, the aches, the memories and the loss. It is possible to do and be present with both, and in that you are not alone.
