Despite all the holidays in the year where I painfully miss my mother, Mother’s Day is one I can’t run away from. There’s no way to hide behind everyone’s cordial chatter, about what your holiday plans are, what you’re looking forward to… You can chat all day long about other holidays and hide your pain, hide your dread, and no one will know. Mother’s Day nears and well… it’s torment for an entire month.
For the motherless, we feel the blow of every radio ad, every news insert, every gift special, every pop-up. The second Mother’s Day starts being advertised everywhere, I have to mentally prepare myself for it all. I have to remind myself of what it was like, and not hate every person that joyfully buys gifts, or starts talking to me then stops suddenly with an awkward, “ohhh….” Then of course, others don’t bring it up at all, but they’re thinking it, she doesn’t have a mom… At least that’s what some of us think.
Whether it’s true or not, younger motherless daughters feel this way constantly. We feel it’s branded on us… or like Anna Quindlen once wrote long ago in the Chicago Tribune, ‘Meet you in the lobby in ten minutes – I have long brown hair, am on the short side, have on a red coat, and my mother died when I as nineteen.’
While I write this, others are dressing for church, to grab brunch, to shop for gifts. Some might even be spending the day with generations of moms. I am in awe at families where three, sometimes four, generations of women are all still alive, all spending time together. Throughout the year, I’ll see a daughter, mother, grandmother, all taking a walk or all having lunch. I want to scream, “Fuck you! Why do you get to have that but I don’t?!!!”
364 days a year, the motherless do a damn good job of hiding what it’s like – what it’s like to not have a mom when it feels at the very core of who we are. The bond between a mother and daughter especially is so primal… Many of us feel that with our mother’s death, a part of us is dead too. It’s incredible how many of us, in our mother’s final moments, all share the same feeling – we wished we’d died right then and there at the same time.
I daydream what today might be like… If mom were here today, I’d make her a handmade card, just like I did as a little girl. I’d snuggle up to her on the couch – because it’s Mother’s Day and fully justified. Then we’d do something grown-up… how amazing that would be. It’s hard to grasp. People get to do that?
Adult daughters have the pleasure of spending an adult day with mom. They’ll grab mimosas and bloody mary’s. For those of us who mourn, we might wake up, make three, and drink them all on our own. Some will love and enjoy the entire day, while some of us will want to remain in bed and never wake up ever again.
For the motherless, yes we share a common thread, but we also all act differently. There is no unity in how we grieve, how we grasp… Some of us will wake up and mourn. Others won’t at all. Some will feel numb to it all. Some will feel like it still isn’t real. Some will wake up and realize it suddenly and painfully, for the very first time… ‘my god, my mom is gone.’
Some will want to cry, and some won’t. Some will want to reflect, and others won’t… it just hurts too much. Some of us will spend our day at a cemetery, some of us will go for a run, some of us will watch old home movies, and some of us just run away entirely.
Some will spend time with their remaining family and be happy to share each other’s company. Some of us will hate every moment of it and just want to be alone. Some of us will celebrate our other ‘moms’ we’ve been blessed with – mothers-in-law, stepmoms, aunts, grandmothers… but it doesn’t compare. It’s never, nor will it ever be, even minutely close to the same.
Many of us however, will count down the minutes until the holiday is over. We’ll be freed from the countless awkward moments leading up to it where we’ve had to play a part. We’re through shopping for others’ moms and leaving empty-handed ourselves. We’re past wishing the moms we know a ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ to receive their stabbingly polite smirks in return. We’re past all the posts and pictures, and of course, all the radio ads that haunt our ears. Everyone is just so happy.
…We’ll be freed, at least for a little while, with how suddenly obvious, overbearing, overwhelming, and crushing motherlessness feels.
I write this to share a common thread that so many of us share… If we could only sit in a room and say, ‘Don’t you just hate everyone sometimes?!’ and all nod in agreement. I understand that my feelings and my experience is different. I understand that I’m biased, and that it’s no one else’s fault, which has allowed me to handle and accept things better than most.
But the truth is, we the motherless, feel every word. We hear every unintended blow. We’re the only ones that can get and appreciate how difficult this day is. For those who show concern or care, it’s appreciated, but to them, our story is just a story they can recall and retell. It’s near impossible to fully empathize. It’s impossible to fully understand how we really feel, how we receive so heavily everything that is said, what it’s like to not have a mother… especially when you should still have one.
Everything from small words to a grand statement weigh on us. I once had a boyfriend who was chatting with someone about my dead mother. He was the nicest guy in the world. He very politely said to this person, “It’s awful, but you know, it is what it is…” It is what it is. Those words weighed on me. I didn’t talk to him all night. He kept asking what was wrong, but I couldn’t tell him. He didn’t mean to be insensitive, but that’s all I could hear.
Then I went to a graduation just last week where the President made a huge testimony to the moms in the room. He kept going on about Mother’s Day and asked the students to thank their moms for all they’ve done for them. I thought of my sister sitting there in her cap and gown, clapping as he called for round of applause for all the moms. Again, I know I’m biased, but all I could think was… “That’s kind of insensitive. What about those of us who don’t have moms?!” We feel everything. A person can simply say, “I called my mom today, and we feel it.”
I woke up this morning and it was raining. I thought of my mother beneath sopping wet grass, decayed. Some of us will hide. Some of us will write. Some of us will reflect. Some will try to forget. Some are moms now themselves… and that helps, but it doesn’t take away the pain. For many of us, Mother’s Day is the worst because it throws everything right in your face. There’s no getting around it. We feel so obviously like the odd one out. We feel like this all the time, but Mother’s Day is the worst.
And for me… today is also my mother’s birthday. She would have been 59. I would have brought her double gifts, and a card, and a cake, and we would have had the best day ever.
I can’t end this on a low note… but this is what I know. Many of these are my own sentiments, and many come from the countless others I know and that I’ve followed since joining this ‘club.’ There’s no easy solution to the rest of you, in how to speak to us in a certain way, or the right way. It will always be either awkward or sad. But it’s okay to show support… because we do appreciate it. All of us are working daily on not blaming the world, not hating daughters who fight with their moms, not hating the ungrateful, and on understanding it’s no one else’s fault.
Today, I do want to be alone. It’s just how I get past hard times. I spend time alone. At the same time however, I’ll write. Since my mother passed, a devotion to keeping her spirit alive has kept a smile on my face, at least most of the time. I’ve been an advocate for Alzheimer’s. I’ve shared our story. I’ve helped lead a six-figure research-funding awareness walk. I’ve launched a nonprofit theatre company in her memory with amazing success… and now I’m writing a book. So today, I will write.
To the motherless on Mother’s Day, my thread finds its way. We are all united. And however you choose to spend today, in ways that are positive or even harmful, know you’re not alone. Among the masses, we are a small minority. Together, we are strong and our purpose is to find the silver lining, to do more, to find the good we can do in spite of the bad hand we’ve been dealt, in strength with what we have learned.
“What if you were sent major pain, not only to learn from it, but to help others too?” Mastin Kipp