Mother’s Day again

There’s a day in the year, that can you either make you want to laugh, love, cry, hide away or in my case all four of them.

I’m writing this from the perspective of a grieving mum not any other situation, not someone who’s lost a mum or a gran or someone who can’t have children. It’s just from me, a normal someone who’s lost their child – you know, the wrong way around, the way that it should never be.

I got one Mother’s Day with Millie, she was just two months old, I got one, just the one. I remember how excited I was for my first Mother’s Day, how proud I was of being a mum and having this amazing little girl … then we lost her.

From then on, Mother’s Day has always broken my heart over and over again. Yes it’s changed since having Leo and Asher but it’s never going to be the same as that first one that I had with Millie, it’s always going to be a little bit sad, just like every special day always has been and will be for the rest of my life.

Even after having Leo, I’ve struggled ever since especially for those first couple of years because I just didn’t want to go out and see other families so happy with one another on this special day, not because I’m jealous or selfish but because it hurts, it really damn hurts. You know that real physical gut wrenching pain that makes you keel over and want to throw up, that’s what it’s like.

Visiting your child’s resting place on Mother’s Day isn’t something that anyone ever dreams of doing. You don’t ever think that you’ll be giving your daughter flowers on Mother’s Day in a cemetery instead of her giving them to you with a cute little card that she’s made. The cemetery is a strange place on Mother’s Day – the majority of people who are there are there because they are visiting their mum or a gran, I’m the anomaly, I’m the one that they look at and feel sorry for, I’m the one that they want to give a hug to and I’m the one that they don’t ever want to be. I’m the one that shows them how cruel the world can be.

And then I lost another baby, I had a miscarriage just before 12 weeks in between Leo and Asher – talk bout being kicked when you are down. That’s two babies of mine that aren’t here, two that I will never see grow up, two that won’t ever call me Mummy.

I have my rainbows too though, our amazing Leo and Asher – they’ve changed everything for us, turned us back into parents, the ones we should have been all along – our amazing little funny twosome.

When I was heavily pregnant with Millie, an old friend from my teens died, he was only 28. I remember looking at his poor mum at the funeral whilst I was cradling my bump thinking how upset she was and how it was so wrong that she was burying her child, I could not imagine what she was going through – the pain she was feeling.

Less than a year later, I was burying my own daughter.

Then a couple of weeks ago, I went to a funeral. A friend of ours that was diagnosed with Cancer just 3 weeks prior to his death. This amazingly kind man went to school with Dan and he was one of the most lovely people you could ever meet, so kind and friendly. In his mid forties, not much warning and then he was gone.

We managed to get to see him before he passed away and at the same time I saw his parents, the look on his mum’s face, the tiredness in her eyes and the lost soul that she was, I could relate to it all and I felt so sorry for her – knowing what was coming.

This lady was in her 70s and the next time I saw her, she was burying her child. Her Boy. Her Baby. He was still her baby, even if he was in his 40s. I knew she would be thinking about when she held him as a baby, when he made her laugh and when he hugged her. She would be remembering it all and my heart broke for her at his funeral.

It doesn’t matter how old your child is when you lose them, it could be in pregnancy, infancy, teens , mid forties, they are still your baby, the one you created to bring into this world, the one that you thought would saying goodbye to you when you were old and ready to leave. It’s so damn wrong.

She’s facing her first Mother’s Day without one of her sons and I feel for her so much.

It’s going to hurt her, it’s going to make her cry, she’s going to need a lot of hugs.

So this Mother’s Day (all dependent on whether I’m well as I’ve been ill this week – had to go to the docs and everything!), after visiting Millie at her resting place, we will hopefully get to Chester Zoo – the place where we spent our only Mother’s Day with Millie. It’s that big there that I can cry if I need to and people don’t bat an eyelid and the boys love it there AND we get to see Millie the Giraffe (named after our Millie).

We won’t go out for a meal, I’m still not there yet, my seventh Mother’s Day without Millie and I still can’t sit there watching other families laugh and smile even though I have my boys here. I see a little girl hugging her mum and that’s it, I’m a mess for the rest of the day. So we’ll probably just get a takeaway and have a gin with the boys at home (obviously the gin is for mummy and daddy only).

Hopefully as the boys get older and they want to take me out on this special day, I will be able to do it, for them.

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But for anyone out there that knows a mummy who has a missing child this weekend, send them a text , even if it’s just a few words or an emoji if you don’t know exactly what to say – they’ll appreciate you thinking of them and the child that they grieve for every day.

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For the rest of you, enjoy your Mother’s Day, the smiles, the laughter, the fun, the way that it should be.

Joanne xxx

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