On Sunday it’s Mother’s Day and families all over New Zealand will be making a big fuss of their mums. Breakfast in bed, flowers, handmade cards – all the pampering you can give her is rightly deserved. But while, for many, Mother’s Day is a day of celebration, for others it’s a difficult day.
There are couples who have not been able to have children; women who have lost children or lost pregnancies. Until I started my own family – and it became a bittersweet day – it was a difficult day for me too because I lost my mum at 15. Lots of us no longer have our mums.
So if Mother’s Day is a tough day for you, how do you get through it? I asked counsellor Megan Downer from Fertility Plus to share her advice:
Acknowledge how you feel
A good place to start is looking at why it is so difficult, Megan begins.
“Although it may seem obvious, it’s useful to talk about that. Grief resurfaces at those times when we’re reminded of what we have lost. So those without children are reminded of the pain of not having children on Mother’s Day. Those who’ve lost mothers are reminded of their mum and what they miss about her. Those who’ve lost pregnancies think of those lost babies and what age they would have been now, and the lost opportunity of being a mother to those babies.
“It’s important to start with just understanding why it’s so difficult, and that your grief never fully goes away. It gets more manageable with time, of course, and as we adjust to our lives without that person. But it’s at those special times like Mother’s Day that grief can feel more intense.
“There was a lot of talk many years ago about the five stages of grief but we now understand it to be quite different. Those models are still useful, but rather than moving through stages in a particular order and then miraculously feeling better we now understand that grief is more of a journey. Initially, when we have that loss it’s overwhelming but as we work through and adjust to that loss, it gets easier. But at those particular times when we’re reminded of our loss it can feel really big again.
When it feels ‘big’ again, this doesn’t mean we’re going backwards. “This is a normal part of grief,” Megan reassures.
Attend to your feelings
Grief comes in many forms – anger, resentment, sadness, guilt – and whatever your feelings are, it’s better to attend to them than push them away, Megan advises. “We know that’s the way through grief.”
Talk about your feelings with those who understand.
Spend part of the day visiting a special place where you can reflect on that person or that loss – it could be their gravesite, a river, the sea.
Create and follow rituals that allow you some time to think about your loss and acknowledge the importance of that person in your life. Some people like to light a candle.
Megan has noticed that women in particular seem uncomfortable with feelings of anger – “yet resentment and anger are very normal feelings associated with loss”.
“So if you’re able to talk about them with somebody, that’s a way of venting that anger. Exercise can help release anger, smashing a few things, something that’s not going to hurt anyone else, writing an angry letter…
“But again it’s just about acknowledging that it’s a normal feeling to have, and being able to express it rather than holding it in.”
Plan for the day
Megan says that, especially for couples without children, it’s important you don’t feel pressured to be spending the whole day in a situation that you’re not comfortable in.
“It might be that you spend a small part of the day in celebration, but not the whole part. Do the brunch but then do something for yourself. Spend time with your partner or with other couples without children. Create traditions that are meaningful to you.
“These sorts of things help us to feel more in control.”
“The other important thing is communicating those plans with others, so that a couple without children might say to their friends, ‘I’m sure you’ll understand that this is a particularly difficult time for us and we’re going to spend the time together on that day, so we’re sorry we won’t be able to come’.
“So just letting people know. If you’re not feeling up to it then it’s important not to force it.”
