With our arms empty we could be fooled into thinking that we are not included in Mother’s Day. But Mother’s Day is reserved not just for those with children we can see, but also for those with children we can’t. Let’s think of it instead as a celebration of motherhood, in all its wobbly variations.
Our first feelings can be of, Where do I fit in? Do I count as a mother? How can I celebrate the day without my baby here?
If we have held life in our womb, no matter how briefly, we have at some point been a mother. And once you are a mother, you are always a mother.
To those around us it may seem confusing as to where we draw the line, but it’s actually pretty black and white. Are you a mother if you didn’t give birth? Are you a mother if your child died without ever taking a breath? Well, yes, of course. Mothers are wise enough to realise that life begins long before birth. We may see the beginnings of our baby on a screen, we may feel their kicks and rolls, we may see our belly swell as it works to house our intended future. In all scenarios we have harvested a life inside us. While we may not feel like a mother in the traditional sense, we are a mother the very first moment we carry that spark of life.
Motherhood is not always about changing nappies and night feeds—these are only a small aspect of what being a mother means. If we look at the bigger picture we can see that being a mother is much more than the physical acts, motherhood is about nurture, and utilising and spreading the love that comes with the title. Just as there are sadly many mothers in the world who are, for some reason or another, unfit in the care of their babies, there are many mothers in the world who are fit for the job but remain empty armed.
If we were to birth and raise a child providing only the bare minimum of food and nappy changes, we would still be called a mother, and yet this is simply not enough to provide a child with all their needs. SO MUCH MORE is required … care, patience, courage, strength, passion, endless love. The absence of our child cannot remove those qualities from our heart; we still possess the core ingredients of motherhood.
There are so many mothers without children. Whether they have birthed and buried them or are still waiting for that double line, we are still mothers in an unconventional way. It is possible to have the qualification without the experience. In this world of baby loss, a world where we are all striving to achieve this ultimate title, let’s first allow ourselves the honour of calling ourselves ‘a mother’.
So now, we can hold that title firm. And you know what, we can hold on to it with pride too, because motherhood and pride go hand-in-hand. Have you ever met a mother who is not proud in some way of their child? And we are certainly still proud of ours whether they are visible to the outside world or not. If they battled to stay alive then we are proud of their strength, grit and courage. If they stayed silently in our womb, we are proud of their determination, beauty and the love they gave us. If their life inside us began and ended as swiftly as the sun rises and sets, then we are still proud of the hope they filled our hearts with and the dreams they filled our heads with, and of their gentle and meaningful existence.
We always imagine that as a mother we will spend our lives teaching our children, but they often end up teaching us more, and this is true even of babies that couldn’t stay with us. We can take great pride in the fact that our babies gifted us with such meaningful lessons, such as the preciousness of life, the importance of loving those around us and the knowledge that love lives on forever. If we put aside the commercial drive of Mother’s Day we can see just how incredible it is to think that we have collectively, as a species, decided to dedicate an entire day just to celebrate a parent. The very notion of it is a recognition of just how deep and powerful that connection of mother and child is.
And without a mother, our beautiful babies would never have come to exist at all. So let’s take some time to celebrate that. Can you imagine your baby never existing? No, you don’t want to, do you? Despite the pain and hurt that comes with their death, the boundless love that comes with their life outweighs it monumentally. Their existence is down to you. No doubt you are already finding ways to honour and remember your baby; this is your legacy of motherhood. Let the day be a celebration of that, of your baby and of YOU.
If we want to explore further just how admirable the gift of motherhood is, in all its squiggly and untraditional sittings, then we only have to look around us. Even in the animal realm, we witness the unique connection between mother and child, and of course the bonds between father and child too. We see turtles making great pilgrimages to rest their eggs in safe places, birds carefully taking the time and energy to create nests for their chicks, kangaroos scurrying their young into pouches for warmth and comfort.
And being a mother does not stop if our babies can’t stay. We carry with us that nurture and compassion, it is ingrained into our gut, and we invest it into our babies’ memory, creating lasting legacies and distributing the love elsewhere. When our babies arrived they came with a parcel, a big box of love, and they left that love with us. Just as any mother’s love grows, so does ours. We invest what we can into remembering our own baby and, with the rest of the love, well it’s up to us what we do with that. But wouldn’t it do our babies a great justice if we sprinkled it around like the gold dust it is, carrying out acts of kindness and saying their names as we do so.
Your baby may not be visible on Mother’s Day, but they live on through you, they rely on your actions to nurture their memory.
If you are looking for a proactive way to celebrate this new abundance of love, creating little ‘random acts of kindness’ parcels to distribute is a really meaningful and fulfilling task. Maybe it is trinkets boxed up and scattered around town, each with a little note telling the lucky discoverer your baby’s name and wishing them a peaceful Mother’s Day, or decoratively painted pebbles left hidden along popular walking routes. Or perhaps it is a physical act, a monetary or material donation in your baby’s name, or even a day volunteering in a homeless shelter or charity close to your heart. With each act of kindness you are distributing love gifted to you by your baby, and you can dedicate the results to them.
You can end the day by saying, ‘Thank you baby, you gave me this love and look what I did with it.’
Alongside the more traditional ways of marking the day, such as visiting a memorial with flowers and taking a fresh air walk, you can spend some time sitting with your thoughts, snuggled in bed with your partner or sat in a nursery holding some of your baby’s items close to you. You can close your eyes and contemplate just how immense the title of ‘mother’ is. What a gift, the most admirable and life-changing gift. And who is responsible for this incredible gift? Your baby, of course.
You can really take some time, away from the world, to fill your heart with deep gratitude. You can thank your baby for existing, in whatever form that may be. With thanks to them you have crossed an almighty threshold, you have transformed from ‘woman’ to ‘mother’. It is the greatest title to be crowned with, an absolute honour to know that you are now, and forever will be, a mother.
Would you like a gift? Maybe you would like to begin a memorial in your garden and could take the opportunity of Mother’s Day to plant seeds, ready to witness their bloom over the years to come. Or you could request to have your baby’s ashes transformed into jewellery. You could choose a photograph keepsake, or simply a bouquet of flowers and a card addressed to ‘Mummy’. Be bravely vocal about what you would like and what you want to do, so those around you will be able to meet expectations that they may have otherwise been too nervous to carry out, in fear of upsetting you.
Perhaps you already have other living children. What have all your babies taught you? That a mother’s love comes on an endless roll. It does not diminish or wear thin when spread across several offspring. A mother’s love simply grows and grows, just when we imagine it has reached its highest height, our love stretches once more beyond sight. More children just equals more love.
Our babies taught us that our hearts have capacity to love beyond bounds. That is powerful lesson and one to thank our babies for.
There is no denying that parts of the day will hurt, I’m sure that goes without saying. I remember my first Mother’s Day without Winter. Dean bought me flowers to take to the memorial, then we went out for lunch with photographs of our son (and his tiny urn smuggled in Deans pocket … hey, nothing is weird if it comforts you!). I felt just full of gratitude and love, until a young family with a baby the same age as Winter sat at the table next to us. Naturally, they were celebrating. I felt a lot of warmth for them, but I also experienced a huge rush of pain, and I hid in the toilets in tears before we left.
I share this experience because there is no shame in it. You are always allowed to feel how you feel. You can expect the day to throw challenges, particularly when you see families celebrating what you are simply remembering. You are likely to feel jealous and bitter, your heart can be struck in agony. And you can always remove yourself from anything that bears too great a burden; you can politely turn down an invite that will give rise to too much pain. That’s all OK. It doesn’t mean the day is a failure, ruined or marred, it just means that you are loving your baby and missing them too. By telling those around you how you would like to spend the day you can set your own expectations.
If celebration feels too far-fetched, then simply marking the day may be enough for you. No matter how deep your grief, you are now undeniably a mother, and this special day has taken on new meaning. Even just a gentle nod to the day is enough. Perhaps your heart is too fragile, perhaps today you turn off social media, close the blinds and squirrel yourself away. Perhaps next year you will feel more able to embrace the day. There is never any right or wrong – if it suits your grief and it doesn’t harm others then you are perfectly entitled to do whatever feels right. But don’t ever forget that magical bottom line – your baby is loved, there is no doubt about that, and they love you back, of course they do, why wouldn’t they? And perhaps that little truth could give rise to a small celebration at least.
You are their mother today and always.
As Mother’s Day arrives you can:
Remember, once a mother always a mother. Take time to relish your title.
Think how you would like to mark the day, perhaps visiting a special place and creating new special memories.
Or, find a way to honour your baby, such as random acts of kindness or a donation in their memory.
Tell those close to you what you would like to do, so they can confidently join in your celebration or support you as you hibernate.
Remember that you can allow yourself time to grieve, and the day isn’t ‘ruined’ if you find celebration difficult.