Mother’s Day is a difficult day for many people to navigate. There are so many paths to motherhood, so many difficulties that can arise in relationships, and there is so much loss. All of these things can compound the hurt that people may feel on any other day, and bring that pain right to the forefront on Mother's Day.
I've fit some of these roles over the years, and have been blessed not to fit many of them. Now I find myself in the most dreaded role of all - a mother who has lost her child. I didn’t know there was a term for this type of parent - vilomah, which literally means “against the natural order.” In fact, I didn’t know a lot of things about being a loss mom until I became one. Now, every day I am adjusting, correcting assumptions I didn’t even realize I held before, and understanding motherhood in a very different way than I expected.
For years, I have treated Mother’s Day with trepidation. I have approached it tentatively, trying to distract from my own desperate, unfulfilled wish of motherhood by focusing on my own mother. Marc and I have busied ourselves on this day with an elaborate Mother’s Day brunch for my mom, followed by a trip up to Longmont to spend time with his mother. After all...I wasn’t a mother, so why not focus on the two who raised us?
That strategy has helped me navigate many Mother’s Days with only the smallest twinge in my own heart. Of course...this year will be different. No amount of distraction will cover the chasm within me this year. Nor would I want it to, anymore.
This year, I will not hide from Mother’s Day. This year, I welcome the pain. I will soak in it, sob, scream, whatever the day throws at me. The only advice I’ve been able to pull from other mothers who have walked this road before me is to just let the day be whatever it needs to be. Place no expectations on yourself and how you need to feel, and place no pressure on yourself. After all, I’m not going to miss Reed any less the day after. Still, I anticipate pain, and I will greet it with open arms when it arrives.
But...I also anticipate joy.
Mother’s Day has been hard for me before because I wasn’t a mother, and I wanted to be. This year, for the first time ever, I AM. I am Reed Elliott Gorenstein’s mother. I am Reed’s mother in ways I never understood loss moms could be until I became one myself. I take care of that little boy every day - I protect him, I honor him, and I love him more than words can explain. And believe it or not...I love being a mother.
Of course it is extremely painful. Of course I would prefer a version of motherhood where I got to hear my little boy laugh, watch him smile, see him grow. But I finally know what motherhood is, and it fills my heart even while breaking me down to nothing. Finally, I understand what it is like to have an inexplicable love for your child creep quietly up on you as you stand by his bedside, gazing at him in awe. I understand the overwhelming pride that comes from simply looking at my son and knowing deep down in my heart that he is special. I understand the visceral desire to protect him, the need to see him be loved and respected. I understand the defensive "mama bear" instinct that makes me see red when I think Reed has been wronged or slighted in some way. I feel all these things still and I realize...we do not stop mothering our children simply because they are gone. We simply learn to mother them differently.
Sometimes I feel my inner self smiling in sorrow and shaking my head. Whatever she needs to tell herself, I think. But...she couldn’t possibly know what real motherhood is like. I see the judgement I carry for myself, and the phrase “real mother” haunts me. Fortunately, I have found other moms who I can turn to when my own mind gets too clouded with judgement and assumptions. I have found other loss moms who, unlike me, also have living children. I have asked them the questions that keep me up at night and revealed to them my deepest insecurities about motherhood. After all, they know both roads - the one I wanted to be on, and the one I didn’t. They assure me that there are fewer differences between those two roads than I once thought.
So, yes, this year is my first Mother’s Day without my son, and I’m sure that will make it...complicated. But it is also my first Mother’s Day as a mother. Nothing - not even death - can take that away. I will ache for Reed this Mother’s Day. I will miss him, and grieve for all the moments he and I will never get to share. But I will also celebrate the fact that he is, and will always be, my sweet son. The one who made me a mom, and who continues to help me learn how to be a good mom every day. I will rejoice over what a truly special boy he is. Because the painful, unbelievable truth is, I'd rather be a mother to him this way than to never have known him at all.