The birth/death of Liam Andrew — my stillborn son who would have turned twenty-nine today — occurred three days before Mother’s Day. And my mother had passed away two years before that.
I still remember how the combination of shock, grief, and hormonal changes left me feeling completely dazed and confused as I negotiated those first days. And Mother’s Day cards had me reeling.
After all, I no longer had a mother and all of a sudden I wasn’t going to be a mother either. It was a very surreal time.
Twenty-nine years later the grief and the wounds have healed. But there’s always a few moments in the lead-up to Mother’s Day when I have to pause and reflect and give thanks for my mother and for the experience of being Liam’s mother for even a short while.