To the mothers without their babies this Mother's Day

To the mothers without babies this Mother’s Day, but who are still mothers

I know your heart is heavy. I know the world feels too bright, too loud, too full of what isn’t yours to hold.

For so many, spring is a welcome relief. But for those in the throes of grief, it is an onslaught - a forced emergence from the winter that held and comforted you in its bleakness.

‘April is the cruellest month’, T.S Eliot wrote in The Waste Land. Perhaps like me, March is the difficult prelude that arrives ‘carrying memory and desire’. A due date. An anniversary. A reminder of what might have been. The looming presence of Mother’s Day. All reminding you that someone you loved is not here - and yet is also everywhere, embedded in your heart, your body, your memory, the earth.

Winter provided cover. It felt protective and possessive at once. It allowed grief to exist without contrast. It gave you space to gather strength. You have welcomed the cold and the dark, yearned for storms. You have been thankful to be able to stay cocooned at home, and may have found some small healing in practical ways: cooking, baking, binge-watching TV shows, reading, colouring, completing jigsaws. Piece by piece. Episode by episode. Ingredient by ingredient. Page by page. Each small act proof that you are still here. That you are surviving.

But seasons do not pause for sorrow, and even though you want winter to last forever like Narnia under the White Witch’s spell, one day it just… leaves you. Abandoned. Alone. Exposed.

‘My baby died,’ you think. ‘How can the world possibly bloom into life again?’

Trust me when I tell you that you do not have to rush toward spring. You do not have to let the world dictate how your grief should look or when you should emerge. It is okay to press pause.

Spring is full of symbols: birth, renewal, hope. But after loss, they can feel confrontational. Every nursery-hued flower shop bloom, every mocking birdsong, every newborn lamb can feel like proof of what is missing.

And then, Mother’s Day is upon us. The biggest weapon in spring’s artillery, aimed directly at whatever fragile strength you’ve managed to gather, forcing your grief centre stage.

Throughout March, Mother’s Day becomes a painfully blinding spotlight. Cards and window displays in shops, special afternoon teas, lunches and dinners in restaurants, the marketing, the emails, the emails asking if you want to opt out of the Mother’s Day marketing emails - each one a cruel reminder of what you are not holding.

It is okay to look away. It is okay to protect yourself. You do not have to “participate” in hope or happiness before you are ready.

You can winter for as long as you need. Let the season of grief - whatever stage you are in - be slow and gentle. Let it be quiet, dark and patient. Spring does not have to be bold. It can be an incredibly slow, unfurling like a bulb that flowered last year but only reaches out a few leaves this year because it simply does not have the energy.

Some years, spring can feel as long and cold as winter. And that is okay.

In time - and only in time - it is possible to reclaim spring. You can create rituals of remembrance that anchor you in memory and love.

Plant a tree. Plant bulbs. Or seeds. Write a letter each March. Keep a memory box. Paint. Bake. Walk a familiar path. Let these small acts hold both grief and love.

Spring does not have to mean rebirth. It can mean endurance. Another year survived. Roots deepening underground long before anyone sees growth.

“What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish?” — The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot

The roots are your love. Your memory. Your persistence. Your presence.

That is enough.

Eventually, spring - and your grief - will shift. Not the first year, not necessarily the third or fourth. But one day, the light may feel a little less hostile. The daffodils will feel like witnesses to your love rather than prosecutors of your loss. You may notice the crocuses, smile warily in the sun, and then feel a sudden pang of guilt. You worry it means you are forgetting. You are not. You will never forget. Your grief is carried within you, always. It is part of you, shaping you, guiding you - as the sun’s light defines the day, and its movements, combined with the Earth’s tilt, create the seasons. That coexistence - of grief and life, memory and joy - is at the heart of reclaiming spring, and reclaiming yourself.

Trust me when I tell you that noticing beauty does not mean you have forgotten. Smiling does not mean someone mattered less; it means they matter more. You now carry them with you in your life every single day. They have become one with that beauty that you see. Joy does not replace grief. Acceptance does not bypass it - it sits alongside it.

You may still long for winter sometimes. That is okay. You do not have to rush. You do not have to perform hope. Some days one walk, noticing one bird's song, achieving one small thing is more than enough.

But slowly, gently, you will feel it: that connection to the roots that clutch, the branches that grow. The buds that bloom. Because even from stony rubbish, life continues.

You are still here.
You are still loving.
You are still holding - in your heart, in your memory, in every small way that matters - your baby.

Now let spring hold you, too.