Bereaved Mother’s Day

By: Amy Lied

The Sunday before Mother’s Day.

A day you never heard of until you joined this terrible club.

It’s a day set assigned to honor the mothers who are living without their child/ren.

It’s a day with which I have a love/hate relationship.

I love the fact that we get our own day, a day to honor our unique motherhood. 

At the same time, I also hate that fact. 

I hate that our children aren’t here and that our motherhood is different.  I also resent the fact that we need our own day.  Our motherhood is just as valid as anyone else’s and we should also be honored on regular Mother’s Day.

In my four years of living without my son, I’ve learned that life after loss is just a massive contradiction of emotions, as illustrated above by my feelings towards Bereaved Mother’s Day.

Even with those contradicting emotions, I’ve chosen to acknowledge the day on my social media.  I use it as a way to tell my followers to remember bereaved mothers the following week on Mother’s Day. 

~Remember your friend who lost a child and has no living children.  Send her a text to let her know that you are thinking of her on what is likely a very hard day.  Let her know that even with empty arms, you acknowledge her title as a mother.

~Remember your friend who previously lost a child and now has living children.  Send her a message and let her know that you are aware it’s still a hard day, because someone is always missing.

~Remember the mothers crying while looking at the finite amount of photos they have with their child, knowing they won’t ever get to take those obligatory Mother’s Day photos.

~Remember the mothers who need to excuse themselves from the day’s festivities, go through the Starbucks drive thru, sit alone in their car, write to their dead child in their journal, and sob.  (That would be exactly what I did last year.)

~Remember the mothers who are living without a piece of their heart on a day where social media seems to be flooded with “complete” families. 

It’s your choice how you wish to celebrate or not celebrate Bereaved Mother’s Day.  It’s a day for us. 

For me, that means using it as a not so subtle reminder to others to remember us the following week on actual Mother’s Day, when our hearts are just a little more heavy.

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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.