To the Grieving Women on Mother's Day

The stores are filled and decorated with balloons, cards, cakes and flowers all preparing to wish mothers a Happy Mother’s Day. The soft music commercials are airing with loving embraces of mothers and sons and mothers and daughters.

Restaurants have their brunch menus perfectly designed to cater and celebrate the lovely moms who make the world go round. The calendar has the date permanently marked on your phone, your planner, your hanging calendar… and everywhere you go.

Advertisements, flyers, emails, mail, coupons, are at every turn reminding everyone that this Sunday is Mother’s Day.

And there you are, physically present to witness all of these festive pieces… but in another dimension trying to protect your soul. A mother who has lost their son or daughter. Or a woman wishing she could conceive a child but cannot. Or a woman who has lost their mother. Or a woman who is battling an illness just hoping to survive another year for their child. Or a woman who has given up their child in hopes that the child could have a better life with another family. Or a woman who has lost their partner or spouse and is spending this Mother’s Day without them.

Or even someone like me — a mother who is watching her own mother grieve her other child (my brother). I’m also a widow who loved a man who is no longer with us…and now his mother has lost her only child. Or anyone who isn’t “happy” on Mother’s Day for any reason.

I see you.

I recognize your pain.

I have compassion and empathy for you and your journey.

I wish you a gentle Mother’s Day this Sunday.

I wish you sweet memories of the son or daughter that you have lost. I wish you peace on this day and all days to come. I wish you to know and feel all the love you gave to your son or daughter. I wish the universe to give you a sign, this Sunday, that you are and will always be a tremendous mother. I wish for all of your friends and family and strangers to acknowledge the love that still remains for your son or daughter that will always, always, always be there in your heart.

I wish you a gentle Mother’s Day this Sunday and every day to come.