“Ugh, I hate Mother’s Day! There I said it,” my colleague said as she sat across from me in my office. “Me too,” I concurred. Here we were again having our annual conversation about our least favorite Hallmark holiday. When you work for a children’s grief organization, this is just one of the honest conversations that organically happens with a staff of individuals drawn to this cause by their own loss experiences.
My dislike of Mother’s Day began in 1995 when I was 15 years old and suddenly lost my mother. I buried my mom exactly 30 days before my first motherless Mother’s Day. I kept thinking that the way I felt would change, but each year there were reminders. In college, my roommates would call their moms in our dorm room to say Happy Mother’s Day. In my 20s, I would sit at home while my friends had brunch with their moms. Even now when I take my son to soccer on Mother’s Day, I’ll see the other women my age there with their moms, looking on their grandchild with adoration.
Like me, my colleague also lost her mom — in her 20s — and she’s found that this day causes her pain year after year. This is something no one really talks about. Grief lasts a lifetime. It often surprises the griever, as well as their friends and loved ones, how long the wounds linger. Birthdays, anniversaries, special occasions, and Mother’s Day can often act like salt to those wounds.
