It is the image in the mind that links us to our lost treasures; but it is the loss that shapes the images, gathers the flowers, weaves the garland. - Colette, My Mother's House
This was the last professional picture taken of my mom and I. I would have been four years old here.
It has been 46 years since I lost my mom. I was five years old, it was the first day of school. She put me on the school bus and that was the last time I saw her. She died tragically giving birth to my brother who also passed away. It was a defining moment in my life. A moment that changed my whole outlook and things would never again be the same.
Being a young child it is hard to navigate a loss as substantial as this. There is no love as pure, unconditional, and strong as a mother's love (and this isn’t taking anything away from dads—I was lucky to have an incredible one. I will write all about that in another blog post). I also did not know anyone else that had lost their mom at such a young age. Everyone in my school had a mom.
Over the years I had a very hard time saying the word "mom". I'm not really sure why. We talked about my mom a lot at home, trying to keep memories alive in our minds. It wasn't until I had my own daughter that the word felt more normal to me.
I endured endless rituals such as Mother's Day, making cards in class, school trips, parent-teacher interviews, graduations, wedding showers, baby showers, births and weddings without my mom.
That absence leaves a kind of emptiness that’s hard to describe. I’ve often felt like my development as a woman was altered in ways I can’t fully measure. For a long time, I found it easier to connect with men than women. Social situations didn’t come naturally to me, and I’ve carried a sense of awkwardness or not quite fitting in. That has softened over the years, but it’s still part of my story.
My mother's death had been the most determining, most profound, the most influential event of my life. Of course others followed, but I do believe this one had the most effect on my life as a woman.
Grief doesn’t leave. It changes shape, but it stays. Over time, you learn how to carry it, how to live alongside it. It becomes part of you.
I was fortunate to have strong women step into my life. They weren’t my mom, but they showed up for me in ways that mattered. They helped guide me, support me, and shape the person I’ve become. For a long time, especially before I had my daughter, Mother’s Day became less about what I had lost and more about what I had been given through them.
Mother’s Day will probably always be complicated for me. But it’s also a reminder; of loss, ye, but also of love that found its way to me anyway, in different forms, through different people, across a lifetime.
