Mothers day can draw out the resentment, the bitterness, the deeper side of sadness in bereavement.
“Happy” Mothers day seems shamefully inappropriate.
After all, I am mother to a dead baby.
Who really wants to go to church, to family reunions, to anywhere, to see the expanding bellies growing under glowing faces as pregnant mothers delight in the pondering of “Does this Mothers day count with me being pregnant, or is my first ‘official’ Mothers day next year, with my baby?”
But the truth is, one thousand seven hundred fifteen pregnant mothers will give birth today,
to their babies,
who aren’t alive.
Every day.
Even Mothers day.
And that’s just in America.
1, 715 mothers who might find stillbirthday by tomorrow.
Whose Mothers day will forever be marked by despair, darkness and grief.
Let us not mark it further with hypocrisy or such painfully shortsighted standards.
In what moment will I cross over from resentment, jealousy and bitterness into open arms, softness and love?
Does her baby need to die before I can drop my own stuff?
Today, on Mothers day, I love all bereaved mothers, but I challenge all bereaved mothers too –
I challenge you to honor your journeys by giving permission, giving grace and giving love to the mothers who aren’t in our community today.
Let us give love across the chasm, stretch beyond the valley of death, to do something exquisitely painful and profoundly significant.
Let us give softness to the mothers who are full of splendor, wonder, and pregnancy today.
We can bring education, awareness, advocacy too –
but let us, may we, bring love, unbegrudgingly.
