Mother, May I ?: On Permission, Grief, and a Gentle Day
May I interest you in a brief game of Mother, Madd Libbs?
I really miss my __________. A woman's purpose is to be a wife and __________. She always wanted to be a __________. You know, you only get one __________. My first bully was my __________. He is out of control, where is his __________? I really don't know my __________.
One word. One role. A single relationship we always return to. That somehow manages to be both the answer and the inquiry.
Mother’s Day has a way of bringing all the complexities, contradictions, and complementary sentiments of that word into the open. The holiday asks for one feeling about a relationship that holds many, and a uniform performance on a day that is, for many of us, unfamiliar, unfulfilled, layered, or grief-shaped. It asks women whose mothers are gone to bury the ache and show up for someone else’s brunch. It asks women carrying complicated relationships, or carrying their own mothering without rest, to perform a single emotion that may not actually be available.
What follows is mine.
T.W. What follows is my own Mother's Day story: losing my mama, the year of her cancer, and the grief I still carry. If today is not the day to hold that with me, scroll to the resources at the end of this post. They will be there when you need them. Wherever you are with this day, you are seen here, and you do not owe anyone a performance of okay.
I say this with all the respect I can muster; When it comes to Mother's Day, I do not want it. Get somebody else to do it! Hell, I don't want to just opt out of the Mother's Day subscription; I want to throw out the whole damn month.
I've not welcomed this holiday since May 11th, 2008. An easy-breezy Mother's Day filled with gifted sunflowers and equal parts laughter and "fussing." Everybody took turns monitoring the "grandbabies," who were making frequent, conspicuous trips to the chocolate fountain at the Golden Corral (…courtesy of a visiting Auntie and Granny). It was all so simple.
No part of my brain could imagine that the last Mother’s Day I spent with my Mama would be her final Mother’s Day on this earth. The second Sunday in May 2009 found my Mama back home in Chicago for cancer treatment, and me still in AZ, standing at the altar call alongside my Granny, praying for my Mama’s healing. My fingers were desperately intertwined with her soft, petite, yet deceptively strong digits. It felt as if that lady were holding the entire weight of my existence. In retrospect, maybe she was… maybe they all were… Granny, Auntie, and GranLena saw me through finishing up finals and graduating with my MSW… when my Mama couldn’t.
It wasn’t until we arrived in Chicago and were on our way to the hospital about a week later that I learned they had also lost Mama on that Mother’s Day. Folks kept saying she waited for me. Maybe she did. I’m inclined to believe she waited more for her grandbabies, who got to climb in the (hospital) bed with her one last time.
Her tired body welcomed them with hugs and kisses, and her usual grandmotherly instructions not to be too loud as to disturb other patients. With my babies adequately distracted by kind nurses and hospital snacks, Mama shot my brother and me a serious but somehow soft glance before quietly questioning, “I don't know if they should have seen me like this?” We offered the respectful head nod of acknowledgment of well-raised Black children before exchanging the knowing sibling expression that could only be interpreted as "whatever, lady 😌." Because we all knew that had they not seen her then, they wouldn’t have had another chance…
On May 28th, 2009, 18 days after Mother's Day, a month to the day after my 28th birthday, my Mama "took her leave" … or whatever folksy shit the old folks be saying. #eternalsideeye 😒
And 17 years later, I find myself wondering:
- Is this a weepy but functional year, or is it one of those years my heart feels like it’s going to break through my chest, and I attempt to hide my sobs from my babies?
-Does my daughterly disdain for this holiday make me a selfish and inconsiderate mother and undeserving of her fighting till the end to give us 18 more days?
She lived and died giving. My mama… she was….she was just EVERYTHING.
I was so well loved by a mother and a human who genuinely loved people and did her level best to leave them better than she found them. It's not lost on me that not everyone is so fortunate. I KNOW I was blessed to have her for as long as I did. And I still feel robbed… I feel like my children were utterly robbed… As much as I love my own children, I strive to follow the example my mother set. I don't hold a candle to my mom.
I put that woman through it, yet she loved me. Her love was so tangible and ubiquitous, it was a superpower I didn’t realize I had. Even with my impulsive nature, she empowered me to believe there was nothing I couldn't do. Like:
Why not apply for grad school and nominate yourself for a fellowship in a department where no one knows you?
Girl… of course you should go back to school F/T, negotiate and advocate yourself into a paid internship!(Big Shoutout to Dr. K) …
Yeah, you have an infant and kindergarten/pre-k babies, and you happen to be a single mom… .. So! What!
Have you not met Micki… Your Mama!!! Did you not do your homework in the class next to her night class? Wasn’t a whole big thing when your dad acted like he forgot to take off for her graduation… smh ..
Did you or did you not already shamelessly nurse your newborn baby boy in the back of your Shakespeare class cause you were committed to finishing next semester? And one must mention that your classmates thought he was a backpack for the first 30 minutes of class.
Man, if you looked up "Just Doin' Shit" 📖 in an early 2000s encyclopedia 📚, you'd find a picture of ME, full of hubris, delusional determination, and a half-cocked plan… WITH MY MAMA, maybe excited, likely perplexed, but always there, riding shotgun! (I’d be utterly remiss if I didn’t acknowledge my true community of sister friends who joined forces with my Mama and enabled my endeavors.)
When it comes to the loss of a loved one, I did not anticipate the difficulty of realizing that there will never be any more “new” pictures of my loved ones.
Everything I know about determination, hope, and love is rooted in what I learned from my Mama. There was a sincerity and genuineness to the way my mother loved that even contextualized her shortcomings and limitations. Her faith as a "follower of Christ" informed her child-rearing, for better and worse... As much as I love my Mama, I can’t deny the harmful impact of the misogynistic and patriarchal doctrine I was raised under. To this day, I continue to unpack the limiting and harmful gender norms and the shame from my childhood and adolescence. I'm confident that I hold values and beliefs that my mother would not align with.
I also know that my mother's beliefs weren't so static and dogmatic that love was ever withheld. I witnessed, in real time, my mother's beliefs and actions evolve as life expanded her heart and perspective. Her love surpassed words and sentiment, rooted in the compassionate and dignified treatment of people. My mother is one of the best people I'll ever know.
More often than not, Mother's Day feels like a perfumed, noisy reminder that I have to go through the rest of my life without the best*, and so do my children. I don't think I'll ever be over losing my Mama. I can't imagine wanting to move past her in that way.
Twenty-eight-year-old me could not fathom being worthy of my Mama's suffering and fighting for eighteen more days just to see me again. Forty-five-year-old me tries to hold and reassure her as lovingly as my Mama would have. Some days I manage it. Other days, she just aches and doubts, and I try to hold the contradiction without resolving it too quickly.
I don't know if I'll ever have a purely or traditionally Happy Mother's Day again. I'm not sure I'm trying to. What I have managed, year after year, are some honest, grateful (truly, for my babies), authentic, and intentionally Gentle Mother's Days.
A Gentle Mother's Day
Gentle: adjective. soft and mild; not harsh or stern or severe.
adjective. quiet and soothing.
Gentleness is not denial or spiritual bypassing. My favorite definition of gentle is NOT harsh or stern. When I consider a soft or gentle life, it starts with giving myself permission to let go of harsh and arbitrary obligations, not limited to, but definitely including, performative holiday happiness.
In our community, the refrain "You only get one Mother" is used to offer validity and comfort for loss, to encourage reunion and oversimplification for complicated and even harmful mothers, and as a warning and admonishment to ungrateful and unruly offspring. The statement is technically and biologically true. It also relegates the multifaceted lived experiences of the mothered child (zero to ninety-nine) in question, so completely that there is a broader societal and uniquely cultural expectation to put all of that aside and perform an uncomplicated “Happy Gratitude” on this day.
If Mother's Day finds your heart longing for a mother who is gone, grieving the mother you wish you had, or aching for the loss of a child, I don't pretend there are words to adequately hold your grief. If mothering has left you stretched thin and unsupported by folks who may not see or care how tired you are, I promise I see you, and your love for and toward your children is not for naught. If you are childfree by choice or by circumstance, longing, relieved, or both, your experience, humanity, and contribution are as valid and valuable as anyone's. If you mother in ways the cards do not name, you are still mothered into being, and you still mother in return, and I see you.
Whatever today is for you, you are not required to perform it any differently than it is.
Resources for Hard Mother's Days
If the weight of the holiday is too heavy, we hope the following is even a small help:
For grief over the loss of a mother or a child: free support videos from David Kessler. https://www.davidkesslertraining.com/mothers-day
For grief during Mother's Day specifically: Charlene Lam's Mother's Day grief resources. https://www.charlenelam.com/mothers-day-grief-resources/
For navigating Mother's Day when your relationship with your mother is hard: Essence on five ways to navigate Mother's Day. https://www.essence.com/lifestyle/5-ways-to-navigate-mothers-day/
Whatever your Mother's Day is, I hope it is yours. I will love and long for my Mama for the rest of my days, and I hope to grow into a woman and live a life worthy of her. Wishing you all a Gentle Mother's Day.
* The DSM-5-TR may classify what I'm describing as Prolonged Grief Disorder. I don't think I meet all the criteria, and I'm also a clinician who avoids self-diagnosing. 😌
