For many, this day stirs a mixture of emotions: joy and grief, gratitude and longing. It’s not always simple, and for many of us, it’s not easy.
I want to name that complexity. I grieve what I do not have, and at the same time, I cherish the many mothers and maternal figures who have come in and out of my life to offer their deep care, support, and love. I hold both the ache of absence and the warmth of presence deeply.
Perhaps you, too, carry both joy and sorrow for this upcoming Mother's Day.
Maybe you’ve longed for children, and for reasons outside of your control, that dream has not come to pass.
Maybe you’ve faced miscarriage or stillbirth, and your grief is invisible to most, but deeply real. Maybe you’ve made the choice to have an abortion, out of love, out of necessity, out of care for your own life, and this day brings a complicated wave of emotion. Maybe you’ve lost a child, at any age, and Mother’s Day is a sharp reminder of that absence.
Maybe you’re nonbinary, and the words mom or mother land heavily and are labels that don’t fully reflect who you are, even as you nurture and care deeply for your children. Maybe you’re estranged from your child, or from your own mother. Maybe your mother has passed, and you're grieving. Whether there is absence based on circumstantial reasons or through death, there is so much to grieve through the loss of a relationship or person. Perhaps you also grieve the relationship you had or wished you had.
Whatever you are feeling in the upcoming days, please remember that you are not alone. There are people who understand and know what you are going through.
Throughout this weekend, let us remember those who have mothered us through their love. And let us remember those you have mothered through your compassion, even if no one gave you that title.
Let us remember, that mothering is not limited to biology or gender or cultural labels.
Mothering is an act of care, of showing up, of holding space, and of nurturing.
Sometimes, mothering is something we learn to do for others.
Sometimes, mothering is something we learn, slowly, beautifully, and sometimes painfully, to offer for ourselves.
So wherever you are today and in the upcoming days, I invite you to sit with these words from Flamy Grant’s song Start Again:
I know that I will stand
With or without a friend
Cause I am a mother to myself
And anyone else who needs to start again
So here’s where I begin
Holding the hand of the child within
Who we are, both in spite and because of where we’ve been
But we can start again
May we all find ways to start again.
May we find ways to mother ourselves and one another with tenderness.