Choosing Sunshine This Mother’s Day
By: Nikki Grayson
Hello there, Beautiful Momma,
I write this to you as I’m sitting in the warm sunshine, blue skies, and bright green grass. Flowers are starting to bloom, and the leaves are starting to bud.
It’s that time of the year again; Spring. A season that brings many showers of rain, but also leaves us so grateful for those days filled with sunshine.
With this season comes Mothers Day, a time when you are more than grateful for your own mother, but a day that leaves you grief stricken in a puddle of tears from the child you lost.
A day that you wish you could skip right over…as if there wasn’t even such a holiday. Many times, people forget to acknowledge you on this day or they “don’t know what to say”, so they don’t say anything at all. We want people to remember our babies, to know that they left a lasting impression on their hearts, and that truly, we are mothers…even if our children are not here with us.
The anxiety and sadness that this day can bring can be overwhelming for us in the days…even weeks leading up to it.
What if we tried another approach to this upcoming day? What if instead of being sad and filling our hearts with anxiety, we looked for the sunshine?
The sunshine that hides behind thick clouds, or that comes out after a thunderstorm, warming the earth. I’m not saying it will be as easy as planting those bright pink petunias, in fact it may feel a little thorny…like those rose bushes you are trimming up. I can almost promise you though, it’s going to make you feel better knowing this day is for you also.
I know your heart is hurting, I know your eyes fill with tears many days, and I know that being a bereaved momma can feel a lot like a hot blistered sunburn.
You matter and your baby matters…more than the stars in the sky on a warm spring night. More than the chirps of peeper frogs marking the beginning of spring. I may not know you and you may not know me, but I already know, without a doubt, that your broken heart matters. It matters to me, which is why I want to reach out and walk beside you through this Mothers Day.
Let’s do this together, imagine we are having coffee together on a sunny, breezy morning on the porch just as you would with a friend. Okay, so maybe you just thought to yourself; I don’t even like coffee! Imagine yourself with your favorite morning drink! Just as two best friends can help each other, we can help each other to get through this day.
We have to remember that even if nobody in our circle of family or friends acknowledges us on this day, we are still mothers. Forget about social media today, take a vacation from it!
Let’s celebrate our little ones we’ve lost! Write him or her a letter, pour out your love for him/her on those empty pages waiting to be written on. Plant a tree or flower just for your baby.
Is there something you wanted to get for your little one while they were still with you in your womb? I encourage you to get it, whatever it may be. Treat yourself to something you like; whether it be that ice cream you’ve been keeping yourself from or that super sweet calorie packed iced coffee you only have once in a while. Today is your day Momma!
The sun is made up of all of the colors mixed together, but appears white to our eyes. The sun is also 93 million miles away from earth. When we’ve lost a baby, the world can seem so black and white…so bleak and incomplete. The days, weeks, or years, from which we’ve lost our littles, can feel so far away from us, so far back in the past.
Be a ray of sunshine this Mother’s Day. Let your light shine, not only for you, but for your baby also.
Let this day be a day of remembrance and let the memories you have warm your heart and pour over you like a breath of fresh air. Just as a rainbow is composed of all of the colors after a fresh spring rain, so is the sunshine.
This Mothers Day; let’s search for the colorful memories of our babies. The first time you heard your baby’s heartbeat, your first ultrasound picture, the first outfit you bought, that moment you held them in your arms.
There will no doubt be days filled with rain, but there will also be many days filled with sunshine. Let the warmth pour over you this Mother’s Day… because you are a mom to a precious angel.
I’m writing this for you, to the mom who is anxiously peeking at her calendar… to give you a glimmer of hope on a hard day, to help you know that you are not alone.
Happy Mother’s Day from one mom to another!
About Nikki Grayson
I am a mom to 5 babies lost through miscarriages, the most recent one being my son at 16 weeks pregnant. I am a nurse, and I live with my husband and two dogs. We love to take walks, ride four wheelers, and do anything that involves being outdoors! I want others that are walking this journey of infertility and pregnancy loss to know they are not alone.