A Mother’s Day Letter to the Motherless Mom

My loves,

This year the second Sunday in May will mark my fourth year as a mother, and in the ugly thorns of life, it will also be my fourth year without my mother. What number are you on? I know you have it listed on that chalkboard in your head – hoping and waiting – that maybe if it gets high enough the blessings and happiness of the life you lead will outweigh what is missing. That as you invite new members into your sisterhood of motherless mothers, and repeat to them the wisdom that was bestowed upon you, that maybe it won’t feel so lonely without her. That you won’t crash in that moment where you forgot for a split second that she’s totally and completely gone forever. I don’t think it’s going to happen friends.

Being a mom without a mom is a triple decker doozy. I’m sure you know the jealously that creeps in. No one to invite into the delivery room, to swoop in when you have a newborn, no one to pick up the sick littles from school or host a tea party at her house when you just need a break. The longing for your own children to know their grandmother. The cookies that never got baked, the bedtime giggles that never happened, and the birthday parties missing a VIP. And the selfish icing on the cake – in the trenches of motherhood, our hardest job, our greatest accomplishment, the biggest hurdles – your number one cheerleader isn’t there.

I’m in the light, I can feel the sunshine of May shining down on my face. {And if you aren’t – you WILL get there.} I’ve let the time I spoke of earlier, the time that will never take the pain away, I’ve let it make me stronger. The ones that have yet to join our club – they don’t understand….how strong we are, how strong you must be to live this. Or what price we pay for this strength. I know how hard those first steps were, when your legs weighed 100 pounds and you were…alone. Those steps changed me, they have instilled beauty and compassion deep within my soul.

And here we are, with this day approaching. I haven’t learned yet what emotion to attack this day with? Everyone screaming from the rooftops – “MY MOM IS SO AMAZING!” What are we supposed to be screaming? It’s every day. I want to scream something every single day. I’m not sure how you lost your mother, or when. My Mother, Anne Elizabeth Peirce, the most perfect mother to walk this Earth, lost her brave battle with cancer at age 59. {Goodness that was really hard to type.} If she got to tell me what to do one last time, she’d tell me to be celebrating myself on Mother’s Day, she would be whispering in my ear that same thing she whispered millions of times in the 31 years I had with her – “I love you my sweets, and I’m proud of you always.”

So this is what I’m going to do… I’m going to celebrate myself. And more importantly, I’m celebrating all of you – bravely walking this twisted scary path with me.  Hand and hand we go, further into the unknown without our leader. This day! If we all spend our day cheering our sisters on, all the brave, beautiful moms without mothers, maybe it won’t feel so twisted and scary and dark this time around. I like to find my mom in the breeze and in the ocean waves – always at my fingertips, but in places that are just a little untouchable. I hope you can hear your mom there too, and this year I hope you hear all of us, screaming about how AMAZING you are!

Huge Love & Huge Hugs,

Sarah

Motherless Mother's Day

6 COMMENTS

  1. This is also my fourth year as a mother but my first as a Motherless Mother. It’s hard to express how I feel but everything you wrote hit home and made me cry-thanks! I can’t imagine how hard it was to write and put your story out there but it lest people like me, who are beginning this motherless mother journey, know that there is sunshine ahead.

    Happy Mother’s Day 🙂

  2. Thank you for your sweet kind words. I lost my mother of 82 on February 26, 2015. This will be my first of many years to come without her here. My daddy died on May 10, 1992 and that year it was Mother’s Day. Mother’s Day has been hard since his passing but this year it will be even harder. I am glad that I had my mother though during the rearing of my children. I couldn’t have done it without her is what I always said but after reading your letter, I have to say that you are so strong to be doing this without yours. My children are now grown 37 and 35 and I will enjoy my day with my children. I will miss my mother more than words can say, but, I know God has a special party planned for ALL the mothers with him. HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!!

  3. Beautiful article. So very true! Happy mother’s day to you and we truly are strong, in ways others cannot imagine.

  4. My mom died of lung cancer at the age of 59 also. It’s been 3 years ago for me. I understand. My pain is lurking always just below the surface when I read your kind of articles. I just break down and cry when I do finish. Thank you and God bless.

  5. Thank you for putting into words how hard this holiday is. I love being a mom. I love my two girls and I love my family who gushe’s over the day, but man, I wish I could just talk to her. It’ll be 20 years this year. I was 14. She had just turned 49. Diabetes is a motherfucker.

    I wish I could tell everyone – hug your mom everyday! Not just on mother’s day. I still have dreams, even in my 30s, where I wake up crying because I was talking to her and the dream ended. The pain never goes away. It just gets further apart, but I know she’s there cheering me on. Thank you again!

    Happy Mother’s day, everyone. Enjoy your day!

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