A group interview featuring 6 respondents reflecting on that certain Sunday in May without their certain someone.
I worry about people—generally, and specifically. On the latter, for example: I worry about single people on Valentine’s Day and I worry about Indigenous People on that Thursday in November. And each year as the calendar approaches the second weekend in May, I worry about people who have lost their mothers and mother figures.
In the last five or six years—on social media and elsewhere—there’s been a palpable shift away from blind, blanketing sentiment dumps of lovey gratitude and gushing appreciation. Culture at large is moving toward an acknowledgement that the brunch-and-bouquets experience is not everyone’s experience1. So what exactly is the Mother’s Day experience when your mother has died—or when your mother is estranged, or absent, or just really complicated?
In an effort to balance the narrative and support those who don’t have an entirely rosy relationship with this American-born phenomenon, I surveyed 6 Grievers from different walks of life—some of whom have been moving through seasons and holidays without a mom for decades now, some of whom are new to this world of a Mother’s Day Without.
If you have something to add, I hope you’ll do so in the comments section.
How many Mother's Days have you spent without your mom?
J: I'd guess a dozen. Mostly because of my college/grad school schedule and location and then also because of my controlling marriage with A. He and I and his parents would travel north to meet my parents at a brunch spot and it was lovely, but when it was all over in two hours I would cry the whole drive home. Two hours over hollandaise was not what I needed. Technically, this is the first Mother’s Day since my mom died but I feel I pre-mourned it for years.
G: It has been 10 years since my mother’s death.
Z: Almost half my life now. I was born in '69. My mom was there.
A: Six years, compared with the 46 I had with her.
N: This will be my 5th Mother's Day since my Mom passed away. I had to count that multiple times since that number hardly feels real. It seems like both yesterday and a lifetime ago.
F: I remember the date, July 6th, but not the year. I know it’s under 10 years, because of where I was working at the time. It’s weird to me that the year escapes me.
The first year after Mom passed I called The Year of Firsts: My first birthday without her, my brother’s first birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, her Birthday and finally Mother’s Day. I felt such relief after that first year was over. I would no longer have to wonder what each of those days was like without her, I now knew and I survived and maybe it would get easier.
Have you noticed that folks are more careful about throwing out big, presumptuous happy ideas via social media on Mother's Day? Have you noticed more posts that address those who ostensibly and very likely aren't going to have the best day? What's your read or reaction on this growing awareness? How does it make you feel? What do you notice—about yourself or anything else—when scrolling social media on or around Mother's Day in general?
J: Social media presence isn't a part of my daily consciousness, but I did notice that Etsy sent emails allowing you to opt out if you’d prefer not to receive Mother’s Day emails. They recognized that it’s not a good time for everyone and you might not want to be barraged by gift ideas. They did the same for Father’s Day.
G: Generally I am not prey to marketing holidays like Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day so I don’t feel personally affected one way or another by the onslaught of social media posts that promote emotional materialism. These Hallmark holidays were invented for the purposes of merchandizing so I never really bought in. I didn’t send flowers, a gift or a card to my mother on Mother’s Day but I usually made a phone call because I succumbed to the social and familial expectation to do so.
Z: I mostly avoid social media. That said, I wouldn't want or expect a trigger warning every time someone wants to say Happy Mother's Day. The observance started as a pacifist initiative but was soon co-opted as consumer spectacle, and social media just adds another layer of hype to a media environment already saturated with holiday ads for florists, greeting cards, and restaurants.
A: Yes, I started noticing it after 2016, with the election that year that seemed to cause a raise in consciousness in reaction to all the horrible stuff that was suddenly all the more glaringly obvious. People were adding content warnings to what could be considered happy stories and acknowledging that a picture of an able-bodied cis-gendered traditional middle class white family celebrating around a table could be triggering to others. People became more aware that these “happy” days weren’t necessarily happy for everyone and that it was insensitive to assume otherwise.
N: I think people are more careful these days, as they are with any topic that could be even somewhat polarizing. I do appreciate posts that provide sensitivity, awareness or even some guidance on the topic. But I also appreciate people celebrating with their children, or honoring their own mothers, living or dead. If I wasn't ok with the content I would probably just avoid social media for the day or days surrounding it, and sometimes I do have to take a little breath and put my phone down if I see a post that awakens some sadness or grief.
F: It’s a strange day when you no longer have a Mom. It doesn’t really feel like it’s my place to participate. It’s a day for Mothers and their kids. Even if I wished all the lovely, wonderful Moms in my life a Happy Mother’s Day, it doesn’t really matter—it’s whether or not their kids and/or partners DO.
What are some of the things you've done for yourself or by yourself across the years while the rest of the world (it can seem) is out there celebrating at brunch or whatever?
J: Walk, cry, dread. When my grandma died in 1998 (untimely, probs deserves a Dateline episode), I think my mom's soul for Mother's Day was crushed. So, Mother's Day for years has been empty. Especially since my brother feels like Mother's Day is about his wife, which, fine, she birthed their two kids. But, my mom was an afterthought in that. A compensatory hanging basket IMHO was not enough. Even after her brain surgery a few days before Mother's Day a few years ago, they brought another outdoor basket, which was another thing I had to keep alive. They were/are so detached.
G: I am usually planting vegetables in my garden on Mother’s Day.
Z: Honestly, Mother's Day was only ever at best a perfunctory chore. Like maybe I'd buy her a card. I was a bad son! But then again, my mother grew up in Soviet Czechoslovakia. As the Germans had outlawed miracles in Casablanca, so did the Russians nullify Mother's Day, so she wasn't particularly invested in it. Expectations were low all around.
A: Reflecting on good times and bad, and being honest about all of it. Taking the day off from obligations or chores or duties. Just not having expectations or demands of myself. Maybe doing something that reminded me of her, but maybe not.
N: I celebrate brunch right there with them, ha. The first Mother's Day after my Mom died we were flying back from a few days in Disneyland. The day seem to be unrecognized by anyone in my family as a celebration for either me or recognition that it would be my first Mother's Day without my own. All of a sudden while waiting in the airport Starbucks line the wave of grief hit me like a ton of bricks. I didn't expect it. I had been doing "so well" to that point. But the feeling of loss was overwhelming. And there I sat in the midst of both my own family and complete strangers in a crowded airport gate with tears streaming. The next Mother's Day (which was May 2020 in the height of Covid, which brought its own sense of heaviness) I was going to be prepared for the grief, I made very clear to my husband what I needed out of that day. How it needed to feel special. Fortunately, he stepped up (generally, we are at the opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to how we celebrate Hallmark holidays and birthdays...so he often needs a gentle reminder that they mean a lot to me). Now with my own children every year we go to brunch and have a pretty low-key day. Both my parents loved any and every holiday, so I always feel closer to them on those days and it feels like a nice reason to celebrate and remember. So yes, I will be getting a mimosa with the rest of the world that day.
Have you ever wanted to just do away with Mother's Day and maybe Father's Day too? Would you replace them with anything? Why or why not?
J: I think the role should be honored. But, I hate Hallmark pressure. The customization of the event versus the parent is essential. Maybe it's a card? A self-made something. Does it have to be brunch, BBQ? No. There is a lot of commercial pressure to keep up with something that both [of our dads] would not entirely embrace.
G: I would definitely do away with these designated days.
Z: I propose POLG Day--Parent(s) Or Legal Guardian Day. This would combine Mother's and Father's Days into one and add recognition for those previously unsung. By having one all-inclusive observance, there's less chance anyone will feel left out, whether it's in celebration of the living or remembrance of the dead.
A. I would love to see an end to most American celebrations. They all seem so commercial and vapid, and they’re all injurious to someone.
N: I wouldn't. Which is maybe selfish. But as I said, my parents really loved all holidays and birthdays. It was always such a special all day. So any holiday really feels like a reason to bring me closer to them and feel them with me. Even just for a day.
F: I don’t think I would do away with the day—despite its over commercialization. At this point in our culture, broadly speaking, anything that brings family together and offers an opportunity to celebrate and remember what’s good about life and humans is a good thing. I also recognize this is not true for sooo many people. (My relationship with my mom was fraught and complicated.) For many kids in foster care it’s got to be terrible. I do think about that as well as part of a double standard and the haves and have nots.
Do you have a favorite memory of Mother's Day, or your mom, that you'd like to share?
J: I think my mom was so rocked by the loss of her mother that she couldn't enjoy the day.
G: In my late twenties, I was homesteading on land in Western Massachusetts with four other women. One year, we all invited our mothers for a Mother’s day weekend to stay with us in our rustic cabins. Despite our simple living conditions, my mother showed up and was game for the experience, participating wholeheartedly in all the activities we planned for our mothers even though it was outside of her own comfort zone.
Z: I could write a book about my mom and probably will, but one moment sits like a diamond on velvet in my memory.
She was getting too frail to drive herself, so I was chauffeuring her around Minneapolis on a brilliant but brisk January day. ("Brisk" is what they call it in Minnesota when it's 30 below.) Before going back to her assisted living apartment, we parked by a frozen lake, windshield sunshine warming the car. She'd beaten the odds but was living on borrowed time. Since her terminal diagnosis, she spoke with no filter and was in a summing up mood. Life had been hard but she had no regrets and was ready for whatever came next. Then she fell silent, nothing more to say, eyes closed, smiling into the sun.
Eight months later I was with her at the end, one hand on her forehead, the other on her wrist, feeling her pulse trail off in six unburdening beats, fading like the footsteps of someone walking away.
A: When I was about 9 or 10 I really went to town with the breakfast in bed thing. Somehow I pretty much pulled it off on my own (my dad was AWOL and I am an only child), which gave me a lot of pride not just about that day and that ideal (this picture perfect thing that families were supposed to do), but being able to cook and plan and create a meal.
N: We grew up right outside Washington, D.C. so most Mother's Days were spent going to our lovely old church in Georgetown with a fancy brunch right after. We'd get all dressed up, and for anyone who knows me, I love any reason to plan an outfit. My dad was a really big gift giver so for weeks leading up to it we'd go shopping with him, usually to Lord & Taylor, and buy all the things. She pretended to love everything. It's funny thinking about it now though that I can't remember any one specifically. They all do sort of blend, but they all evoke the same sentimentality and memory.
F: [My mom] loved Anne Murray, Neil Diamond, John Denver and the music of her youth: The Brother’s Four, Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass. On a Saturday after chores were done she’d put on an album and dance/shuffle around the house. When she danced she always had her tongue sticking out a little bit, it was very funny. When I was little, I always loved dancing with her, as a teenager I was utterly embarrassed and would go to my room. I wish now I would have stayed and danced with her.
How or what does the day feel like to you, lately? Any plans for this year?
J: It will be the first MD without my mom. I adopted B.B. as my brunch date this year. She had two sons, both had untimely deaths. Her husband also died quite young. He was a cop here in town, then fished with my dad which wasn't his thing. Then worked as a security guy at the Port, where I work now, but he fell into the water at the marina and died not long after. So, this year we will go together for Mom's brunch, which I am sure she hasn't done for 8-10 years.
G: My mother bore seven children and was very dedicated to the task of mothering us all, however she was intrinsically a free spirit so on Mother’s Day, I celebrate that she is now totally free of all mothering duties!
Z: Since the precedent of non-event status had been set, I barely notice it. Which is terrible because I'm married and have a very sweet mother-in-law for whom I should do more. I'm sending her a book this year. It documents an ambitious art project completed by her daughter over several months in 2021. I think she'll really like it. I would've sent it anyway, but I need to remind myself that maybe Mother's Day means more to her than it does to me so the timing matters.
A: I have a new friend who doesn’t speak to their mom, so we’re going to get together and let ourselves complain for awhile … then go for a walk and make a big meal or something like that.
N: I'm honestly totally fine with it now. I think it helps that I have two little boys of my own, so I can celebrate my own motherhood which does some good to alleviate the pain of not being able to celebrate my own in the physical sense. But I wake-up and say Happy Mother's Day to her. I feel so fortunate to be able to have her with me all day in the astral sense in a way that I didn't really have even when she was here on earth. I moved away over a decade ago, so wasn't able to spend any of those Mother's Days with her. And she could never visit as she was either caring for my Dad and his health issues, and eventually her own.
Mother's Day is sandwiched right between my own boys' birthdays, and this one feels extra special since my son's birthday is the day after, just as it was the year he was born 6 years ago. My sister will also be visiting, which will be really special since I don't think we've been together for a Mother's Day since I moved, and certainly not since I've been a Mom. I'm sure we'll do brunch, and my boys better be gifting me with their best behavior all day.
F: The day always feels lonely to me and one I spend thinking about how I failed her in her later years when she was ill and suffering, and that I wish I had more compassion or understanding of her depression as her health continued to fail.
I have been thinking about her a lot lately, since my cancer diagnosis and that I’m glad she’s not here for this. I don’t know that I could manage her emotions and the worry and sadness it would cause her. My mom was in a lot of physical pain in the last years of her life, going through the physical pain that accompanies chemo makes me regret I didn’t do more for her, been an advocate, help her through that time in a way that could have provided her relief.
If you could do anything at all—outside the bounds of physics and possibility and whatever else—this year on Mother's Day, what would you do?
J: Hug the moms and the grandmas and the influential aunties and the older cousins and thank allll of them for making us who we are.
G: This year I will be in Paris on Mother’s Day and since my adventurous mother had few opportunities to travel, I plan to take her with me (in spirit) and enjoy the city together.
Z: Hire skywriters to write MOTHERS FOR PEACE above the Pentagon.
Because wikipedia tells me:
The modern holiday was first celebrated in 1907, when Anna Jarvis held the first Mother's Day service of worship at Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, West Virginia.... Her campaign to make Mother's Day a recognized holiday in the United States began in 1905, the year her mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, died. Ann Jarvis had been a peace activist who cared for wounded soldiers on both sides of the American Civil War, and created Mother's Day Work Clubs to address public health issues. She and another peace activist and suffragette Julia Ward Howe had been urging for the creation of a "Mother's Day For Peace" where mothers would ask that their husbands and sons were no longer killed in wars. 40 years before it became an official holiday, Ward Howe had made her Mother's Day Proclamation in 1870, which called upon mothers of all nationalities to band together to promote the "amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.”
A: Well, end gun violence, right? Make reparations, give the land back, end all wars including the one on trans people, create safe access to abortion for all people everywhere. I would do those things on any day if I could be outside the bounds of physics and possibility but it does seem especially right on Mother’s Day.
N: Probably the worst answer of all time, which is to be somewhere with my husband or girlfriends, and without my children. It would be nice to start the day with them, get a nice big hug and some handmade cards, but oh boy would I like a day to myself in a city like New York, Paris or London, shopping and wandering. And falling asleep in a big bed all to myself surrounded by a room service cheese platter and an extravagant chocolate dessert.
All photo illustrations by me using background images from Unsplash and archival photography from a series on porches on Public Domain Review.
A sentiment which can be extended to any and all holidays, Hallmark occasions, and cultural events—as well as archetypes and assumptions in general.
Or actually having a mom in the room but still growing up an orphan. Anyone?