Bittersweet
when Mother's Day is tinged with sorrow
We ran into the rain, leaving shelter behind as we blindly rushed toward the car. Frantically pulling at the door handles, we flung ourselves into safety as soon as we could. My friend and I collapsed into our seats, soaked and breathless from the thrill. We looked at each other and laughed, but a small seed of sorrow pushed at my smile, a little thought in the back of my mind: I shouldn’t be there at all.
It wasn’t until that day, last year, that I knew Mother’s Day could be bittersweet.
The previous two had been new and exciting – my first Mother’s Day, pregnant and thrilled about the future, then the next holiday with a baby in my arms. But last year… last year was the Mother’s Day after we miscarried our second baby at 17 weeks.
There’s a bittersweet side to the holiday that many silently experience. Mothers, like me, who have lost a child too soon. Strained or absent relationships between mothers and children. Those whose lives have taken them on a path without the baby they so desperately wish for.
To some, the holiday is a sweet excuse to buy flowers, write a card, and go out to eat. To others, it can be a painful reminder of their heart’s most tender battle.
I spent last Mother’s Day away on a trip to see a friend. I typed out “Happy Mother’s Day!” to the mothers in my life and held my toddler close, my arms desperately wishing for the baby I should have welcomed in April. Yet, being in a new place with new people was still a welcome distraction from my grief.
That trip to see my friend? It was only because of the miscarriage that I was able to be there at all; it wouldn’t have been possible with a toddler and newborn. It was a blessing to be there, and one of many things that would never have happened if I’d had another child.
I would never have picked up sewing; something that has been a wonderful skill to learn. It allows me to work with my hands, create tangible beauty from nothing, and is another tool in my arsenal of homemade gift options.
If I’d had another baby, I wouldn’t have rediscovered my love of writing, leaning on it as I processed my grief. I likely would never have started a Substack, founded a literary journal, or connected with many others who have walked this path.
“Everything happens for a reason” is a platitude that well-meaning lips often offer to one in the throes of sorrow. I understand the sentiment, but I think it sends the wrong message.
I think a truer statement would be that “good can come from anything.”
I wouldn’t be who I was today without having been through the loss of my baby, and though I would do anything to change the outcome, I know it has played an important role in shaping me. Someday, someone in my life might go through a similar situation, and I will know how to help. God is using (and will use!) my story in more ways than I can imagine.
So even if you find yourself running through a storm this Mother’s Day, remember there is still good waiting to happen. There is still — and always — joy to be found.
It’s the rain, after all, that makes the flowers bloom.
Thank you for taking the time to read.
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Would you be willing to share your daughter in heaven's name??
My journey in motherhood has also followed a path of periodic loss... my firse of three losses happened between the second and third children... Enoch we named him - because Enoch "walked with God and was not... for God took him." It was an early miscarriage, and though the pain of the loss was barely physical, emotionally it was enormous and I was a shell of a mother for months...
Jubilee Peace is our fifth daughter, but not our fifth living daughter. She went home to our Lord sometime between my wafer breaking and her birth, from her cord coming first. An extremely rare but mostly fatal complication. Had she stayed in our family to grow up she would be 18 months now... and I have discovered GREAT peace in the nearness of God through her loss and His drawing close. When I reflect upon the verses which have brought comfort, Job has been there "the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord." As well as the one I am not so good at remembering the reference in Psalms, "You saw my informed body, the number of days ordained for me were written in your book. Before they came to be, they were ordained for me." And it gives my heart rest knowing God KNEW that every day my daughter would ever live on this earth were tucked inside me, and then they would be complete, and He would receive her back to Himself.
Sadly, six months later, they baby I expected to join our family and bring its own form of comfort and joy, followed his sister to heaven during the late part of the first trimester. I named him Samuel, in part because the Biblical Hannah promised and gave HER son Samuel back to God, and even if I hadnt been given a choice in the giving, I wanted to be willing to also give my child as a gift of love to my God.
I am nearing the end of mg years of childbearing, and yet God has graciously given one more child to the world within my womb -- in about 3 months i will hold him or her and rejoice anew.
Yet my family has been changed through our losses... to be more tender and sensitive and less dismissive of the poin we see others endure. In a way I think God knew my heart wasn't sensitive and needed to be, and these have accomplished that in me... and I am grateful. Our mealtime prayers often, OFTEN, include "tell Jubilee that we love her and are looking forward to meeting her someday soon." The others are remembered too, but since we held her, and kissed her, and anointed her little head with oil, so feels so much more tangible to our hearts.
I ache WITH you over the different sort of mothers day which came this year. I am sad that you didnt get to nuzzle your newborn on that day and marvel at her perfection, and show your toddler all the delightful baby things that day... and yet your heart IS divided with love for EACH child, one here, one in heaven. Your love grew and is full for BOTH children. I pray that you know the joy of being blessed with more children again after this. It is a joy to parent, as you already know. And there is a strange kind of tender joy is loving children when you know the bittersweet separation that is only temporary... ALL of their lives you will love them, and being reunited will be glorious, and having more children... any future loss at any point in our lives, will hold the promise of reuniting again.
I hold onto that love, and it casts out future fear. 🥰
Be blessed lovely lady. I bless you.
I really felt the part about Mother’s Day changing for you. The way you described still doing the normal things like texting people, holding your toddler, going through the motions, but having that other layer of what’s missing sitting underneath it felt very real and not overly polished or explained away.