Reflections on Mother’s Day

This week between International Bereaved Mother’s Day and the traditional Mother’s Day has been an emotionally draining roller coaster ride for me as a Still Mother. My world changed three years ago when I lost my own mother, and I never thought that Mother’s Day would feel the same again, knowing that I couldn’t call her and send her flowers any longer.

But then a year later I realized it could get worse – I was then a bereaved mother, mourning the loss of our daughter who was 16 weeks gestation when we had to say goodbye to her due to medical reasons.

Grief poured out of every fiber of my being and spirit. I felt broken wide open, with parts of my heart shattered into pieces that nobody could repair – not even my loving and amazing fiancé who didn’t want to see me hurting, but was hurting himself.

I had endured so much loss in such a short time, with both of my parents and my beloved maternal grandparents all passing in the span of three years, and then my daughter, too. People told me I was strong, wondering how I was getting by after all of that loss and death, and that I was an inspiration, but then many tended to forget all that I had endured as time continued on. But not me. I would never forget. How could I when there was such an empty room in my heart and my spirit was broken, and I couldn’t call the people who raised me and whom I loved the most to talk through all of the pain?

And then loss struck again when we lost our son last year at six weeks gestation due to a miscarriage. I struggled to breathe. Struggled to find any sense in why this was happening to us. Blaming myself for what I could have done better, and wondering, Why? Wondering if we would ever find ourselves pregnant again given that I am of advanced maternal age…wondering if I could ever endure another loss again?

This week all of those emotions have flooded back again.

Some days the grief is just near the surface, where a commercial, song or a quote will throw me over the edge into a tearful mess, like today. And on other days, I feel like a grief and loss “fraud”– on those days when I am filled with pure joy and happiness, surrounded by love from others and from within, and memories of my pregnancies and life growing inside me bringing me happiness instead of sorrow. Where were the tears, the sadness, the numbness? Why so much joy? Shouldn’t I be grieving still? And then I realize that this is what my children would have wanted for their Mama. Yes, time stopped when we suffered our losses, but the sun always rises the next day and we have to find joy and happiness too as much as we can.

I am a Still Mother, having grown life inside me twice, hoping and dreaming about what their lives would have been. I wonder what my little girl, who would be two years old, would have made me for Mother’s Day with her little hand-prints, and what my son, who would be five months old, would have giggled at today. I wonder what kind of Mother I would have been to my kids, hoping that I would have known what to do, that I would have raised them well and loved them with all of my heart, just as I do now even when they aren’t in my arms.

Instead I love my two goddaughters with all of my heart, and am called Auntie by many other beloved children in my life. Instead I hold and cuddle my 11-year-old Boxer and 9-week old puppy too, who we brought home just 10 short days ago; 7 pounds of delight, joy, and love… the irony of it all is not lost on me. I look down at our puppy and her sweet, sleepy face cradled in my arms, and tears stream down my face thinking about how I would have been bonding with my children in similar ways.

I am reminded by other inspirational Still Mothers to love myself, surround myself with grace, joy, and never give up hope. I am humbled, yet saddened too, to know that I am never alone as a Still Mother. I am honored and blessed to be a Still Mother, even though I will always wonder what life would have been like as a Mama of a living child. I open my broken heart and spirit more now than I used to, feel things I never felt before, and honor those feelings as they arise – holding onto the ones that bring me joy and gently letting the ones go that bring me sadness. I am not the same person I was just four short years ago.

And that is okay…because today I am Still a Mother.

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Tara Radke is 43 years old and lives in Tucson, AZ with her fiancé and their two furbabies, boxers named Homie and Leila. She works in public health at a community health center, and in her free time she enjoys writing and photography.

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