Remember that time…?

Photo by Matthias Heil

Mother’s Day is looming. I use that term ‘looming’ intentionally.

I’ve always felt that Mother’s Day was hectic. When I was a teenager, I thought that perhaps all my mum really wanted on her special day … was a break. To sleep in and stay in bed with a book to escape into. No thoughts of cleaning or organising or entertaining or… anything. Just quiet solitude.

For me, when my boys were young, the level of chaos that could transpire in anticipation for that one day – the crafts, the gifts from the school stall, the attempts at making food, was intense. Efforts to take ‘Mummy out for brunch’ when toddlers were never made to sit still, inevitably ended in frustration. I can see how glorious a day in bed, hidden away from responsibility might be.

Mother’s Day is just one day, isn’t it? It comes and it goes. The new coffee mug or photo frame or slippers find their place and the next day life goes back to normal. Mother’s Day is the second Sunday of May. Last year I learned about Bereaved Mother’s Day which occurs on the first Sunday in May. I read a post from a woman – “every day is ‘Bereaved Mother’s Day’ for us”. There is no escaping it, we never forget and there is no break. The Mother’s Day that I wish for is no longer something attainable. The hectic scramble of two little boys showing me their handmade cards and carefully chosen gifts. Hectic and crazy – no quiet solitude about it but how I miss it.

Instead it is now a day I will feign excitement over and snuggle in with my surviving son. His cards and gifts and efforts and affection are still so precious and beloved. I know how fortunate I am to have him to hold me on these days. But there will always be a missing piece. A missing hug and kiss, a missing giggle from the next room, a missing heartbeat. So Mother’s Day is darker for me and so is it’s foreboding place on the calendar.

Mother’s Day is looming the same way every significant day looms over me. Days that were once true celebrations, as hectic as they might present, but still joyful events to be treasured and captured on a canvas. ‘Remember that time the boys rode in a fire truck? Remember that time when we first saw them crash from sugar overload? Remember that time they smashed heads in the bouncy castle?’ Whether it is Mother’s Day, Christmas, birthdays, milestones – the joy is much harder to find when your loved one is gone. When your young son no longer arrives with the dawn, jumping on you, demanding you open his present first. These are days that now, all you have are conversations which start with …‘Remember that time the boys served you a green apple and a block of cheese for your Mother’s Day breakfast? Remember that time they were first able to write their name on your Mother’s Day card? Remember that time…?’

These days are hard and they have the same crushing weight as the anniversaries of terrible days – diagnosis day, surgery day, his last day, his funeral day. These and so many other dates only became significant because of trauma. In 1941, Roosevelt talked of a date that would live in infamy. He spoke about an attack, a violent shock and when my son Tom and I were living through our devastating days, those shocks and attacks, I did not realise how these, previously innocuous dates would one day haunt me.

I have heard other bereaved parents talk about the looming spectre of these ‘dates’. Many of us agree that it is the days and weeks that lead up to an anniversary that are even harder. There is a building anxiousness, a rising swell of dread but it is churning under the surface and must be suffered until the day comes. Until the day goes. Then, at least for me, there is a release – often on the day itself. Perhaps because you cry it out. Perhaps because all of the energy you poured into the remembrance rituals that you prepare and plan is finally exhausted and you can feel relieved that you did everything you could. To remember your son, to celebrate his life, to promote his legacy of courage. To insist that everyone remember. ‘Remember that time that I had a beautifully heroic son called Thomas that loved to dance and run and laugh. Remember that time cancer took him from me?’

“We remember him in our conversations, our celebrations and our quiet moments of reflection”.

I found that when I faced these days of anniversary or calendar events of traditional joy that the act of remembering becomes imbedded into you. To me it seemed a final failure of motherhood would be to forget. Deciding on those ‘ways’ or rituals to remember and celebrate the life of your lost child is all so daunting. I put so much pressure on myself. I think - I must get it right, honouring him is all I can do so perfection is important. All of the mothering that I am desperate to focus on my son, my Thomas, gets spent on those looming days and those ritual ways. When he left on that night in January, I still had years of mothering to do. I always will for the rest of my life.

So, on those anniversary days, we prepare Tom’s favourite menu, we play his favourite games and we display his beautiful face on every wall. I write him letters in the middle of the night while I listen to music that makes me cry. I sit there drinking white wine in the light of his candle staring at the sky. I sit there until my eyes sting and my jaw aches and I can no longer see the page. Then I can fall asleep knowing I did everything I could for my boy on that day. On these days that are about him. About his battle and his memory and my grief. And the next day I might feel a little lighter. Not much but it is something. I made it through another day of infamy.

So when Sunday looms before me for my second Mother’s Day without my son, Tom – I will have my plans set to enjoy the day with Tom’s brother Cameron. Then at some point in the day, I will sit for a little while and say to anyone who will listen… “Remember that time…?”