I thought I was going to be fine this year. I didn’t think I was going to find it so difficult.
One of the things that I have found particularly difficult in the past is
knowing what to do with myself on this day; not wanting to sit alone and brood
but not really knowing who to share the day with – gate-crashing some other mother’s
celebration felt sort of awkward! But this year I am so blessed to have a
wonderful mum-in-law-to-be to celebrate
and so this particular problem no longer existed. I sort of assumed
that I would spend a little bit of time in the morning thinking of my own mum
and then focus the rest of the day on celebrating the mother who raised my fiancé
to be the man I am going to marry.
Then I went to church.
And it hit me out of nowhere.
Grief is a most
peculiar thing; we’re so helpless in the face of it. It’s like a window that
will simply open of its own accord. The room grows cold, and we can do nothing
but shiver.
I love this quote from one of my all time favourite books (and films) Memoirs of a Geisha. The book was passed down to me by my mum, an avid reader,
and it takes pride of place on my bookshelf. There is something lovely about
reading a story that I know my mum has also read and enjoyed. It feels like I
get to share something with her, even though she’s no longer here anymore. For
a wee time I get to inhabit a world that she has walked around in too. But this
quote sums up exactly how I feel today. Out of nowhere I have been struck
helpless by grief. Grief that I was sure I had got a hold of
and dealt with. I think that more and more I believe grief isn’t something
to be dealt with and done with, and it won’t just steadily get easier
every year. Some years will be easier than others. It all just depends what is
going on in life. Perhaps I was a little complacent to believe that I would
just soar through today because it was another year on and last year had been
ok.
Instead of trying to master grief, I've decided that I’m going to try to just
let it run its course. In each of its little episodes. Not to be bowled over by
it, or brood in it, but to just let myself feel it and carry on. My mum will
always have a super special place in my heart, and I will always wish she could
have been here longer. That she could be at our wedding in a few months time.
But I will also always be thankful for the twenty years that I had the
privilege of getting to do life with her, to be loved by her, taught by her and
cared for by her.
And Mother’s Day is changing for me. It’s not just a bitter day
anymore. Having a mum-in-law is a very sweet thing and I’m so excited for our
relationship to grow. Now I have something to look forward to on Mother’s
Day again. It’s like I always seem to write here, life is never black and
white. And I want to experience it in all its colour, even the icy blue of grief. I won’t sweep it under the carpet and I won’t pretend it’s not
there. But I won’t let it hold me back either.
Happy Mother’s Day to all the Motherless Daughters out
there, to my beautiful Mummy Mo in heaven and all the lovely ladies who have
stepped in to mother me in her absence, and to my lovely mum-in-law-to-be,
Carolyn, I love you very much. I really am one very blessed lady.
'Tis better
to have loved and lost
Than never
to have loved at all.
Tennyson
