Being Childless On Mother’s Day
By: Amy Lied
My first Mother’s Day without Asher was only 3 months after he died. That day was soul-crushing, to say the least. I was a mother but the child who gave me that title, wasn’t here to celebrate with me.
Throughout the day, I tried to avoid social media, but when deep in grief sometimes mindless scrolling is a great way to pass the hours. Facebook and Instagram were flooded with photos of mothers with their children, proudly displaying the handmade gifts they received. Each one of them was another knife in my heart.
I will NEVER get anything like that with my firstborn child….ever.
He will never make me a painted garden of his handprints.
He will never make me a macaroni necklace.
He will never wake me up with breakfast in bed made by him and his Daddy.
He will never do any of those things.
Seeing the different variations of each of them flaunted (at least it felt that way to me at the time) in front of me on social media ruined me.
The day was spent trying to pretend it wasn’t Mother’s Day, blindly staring at the TV, or full on sobbing at the cruelness that is this life.
Three years after losing Asher, my arms are now full with his twin little sisters. However, the day still hurts. It always will. One of my children will always be missing and nothing will ever change that fact. While I am now able to celebrate my title as a “mother” with living children, the day makes the Asher-sized hole in my heart, that is always there, glaringly obvious.
Over the years, I’ve learned that including Asher, as best I can, makes the day a little easier. Photos are taken with his weighted bear. A copy of his handprint is placed right next to his sisters’ on the crafts we create. His name is included on the cards to the grandparents. Including him in these small ways allows me to celebrate the day with all three of my children.
My advice to you as we approach Mother’s Day, whether your arms are empty or full, is to be gentle to yourself.
Give yourself grace.
If you need your partner to hide your phone so you aren’t tempted to torture yourself with a social media scroll, do it.
If you need time to sit and cry over the fact that your child is missing, you go right ahead and do just that.
If you need to pretend the day doesn’t exist, that is completely fine.
If you need to include your child in crafts to show that you are a mother of a child who isn’t here, do it.
Every day is a hard day when you are living without your child. There are certain days that seem to amplify the pain that is always present, Mother’s Day is one of those days. Do whatever you can to make it a little easier on your broken mama heart.
About Amy Lied
Amy Lied is a wife and a mother. Her son, Asher, was inexplicably born still on February 19th, 2017. Before losing Asher, she suffered a miscarriage and struggled with unexplained infertility. After losing Asher and struggling to conceive again, she went back to treatment where she became pregnant with her twin daughters; Harper and Scarlett. She has documented her journey from the beginning of her infertility struggles on her blog, Doggie Bags Not Diaper Bags. She is also a co-founder of The Lucky Anchor Project, an online resource for loss families that houses an Etsy store whose profits are donated to loss family non-profit organizations. Sharing her journey has helped her cope and she hopes it also helps others who are walking on this road of life after loss.