Guest Post by Robyna
This won’t be my first mother’s day – it will be my first without my precious second born son in my arms.
Up until now, mother’s day has been about sticky kisses and carefully crafted cards.
About my husband trying to let me sleep in whilst my son hugs me and encourages me to unwrap the gift he made.
It’s been about a whisper from my husband “you’re the best mummy ever.”
It’s been about visiting and celebrating our amazing mothers and all they do for us.
All that will happen this coming mother’s day again, but there will be new rituals.
There will be a present from Xavier. My husband will buy a present from him.
He did the same thing was Isaac wasn’t yet a year old, but Xavier’s incapacity to buy a present is for a very different reason.
We will visit Xavier’s gravesite and shed fresh tears. For Xavier, and for all the other babies in the garden where he rests.
I will have no mothers day card with Xavier’s handprint – nothing to show him growing. The only hand prints I have arrested in time at two weeks old. Forever a newborn.
But I think of him as often as I do Isaac. My motherhood of Xavier is different to that of Isaac, but it is no less important.
It deserves no lesser celebration.
It’s certainly harder and more difficult to explain. It feels invisible.
That invisibility is what drives me to ensure that Xavier is recognised as my son on this day dedicated to motherhood.
I am, I remain, I will always be a mother to Xavier.
Xavier has already given me two precious gifts this mother’s day.
The first is a deep appreciation of my family.
I have always been grateful for my husband and sons. In fact, when Xavier died, I grappled with reasons.
Surely this should have happened to someone who didn’t realise how lucky she was?
Surely someone who might have complained or needed to be taught gratitude?
But even though I was grateful, I have necessarily come to a place of much more profound appreciation.
Somethings you can only truly learn when you know what it is like to have them snatched away.
The second is a deeper understanding of motherhood – that it reaches far beyond what any of us see.
That there are so many mothers, who carry their children in their hearts, but no longer in their arms or their wombs.
This mothers day, unlike any previous to it, I will remember and send love to all those mothers who have had their precious children taken too soon.
I will send positive thoughts to those who have the hearts of mothers but have yet to conceive their precious and much-wanted children.
I will know that I am not alone when I grieve as well as celebrate this mothers day.
But I am determined to celebrate the love I have for both my living child and my child who waits for me in heaven.
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