Payton Cowley with her son, Haven.
Warning: This article references stillbirth
Breakfast in bed, flowers, cards and an algorithm hungry for more sentimental posts about mother and child. There is no escaping the second Sunday of May.
But what if there is no mum? What if there is no child? Reasons may vary - perhaps a death, an estrangement, physical distance or infertility. While social media and retailers present a pastel-coloured fantasy of motherhood, for some, Mother’s Day is anything but joyful.
“Day to day, we can often put the loss or grief aside, but the day itself can act as a trigger – just like any anniversary of loss,” said psychotherapist Kyle MacDonald.
“Of course, like most holidays, the commercial representation is also highly idealised, which can make it even worse”.
For 24-year-old Hamilton poet Payton Cowley, the day is “bittersweet”. Four years ago, her first child, a boy named Gracen, was stillborn at 26 weeks.
“Motherhood was so dark and not a fairy tale that I had anticipated my whole life,” Payton told the Herald, recalling her first Mother’s Day after the tragedy.
“I just remember that was so isolating because although there were people in my life who knew ... I think it was really hard for people to acknowledge that I was a mother because I didn’t have my baby in my arms.”
Payton, who recently self-published a collection of poems, Where the Stars Swim, always loved writing. But it wasn’t until the loss of her son that poetry became a means of navigating grief and healing.
She began posting poems on Instagram, not to be seen, but simply to, her words, “throw back [her] feelings at the world”. She discovered it resonated with others.
One day, she was out to lunch with her mother and a family friend when a stranger approached and thanked her. The woman said Payton’s poetry had captured one of the darkest hours of her life in a way she herself never could.
“I don’t think I realised that I could bring comfort to another mother,” Payton said, “so to think that someone was able to feel seen and understood through my words was really, really special to me.”
Today, Payton is mother to her 2-year-old rainbow baby, Haven – “the joy of my life”. But the ache lingers.
“Amongst all the sweetness, my heart still aches on Mother’s Day for my first baby,” she said.
When grieving mothers reach out to her, she offers this: the world can wait.
“I tell them to take as long as they need to feel all of the emotions that they need to feel and to just let the world wait. But there will come a time when you’ll be able to ... walk into a room that you used to never be able to walk into.
“Healing is not the wind that carries them away. It is the air that fills our lungs.”
For Susan (not her real name), the pain of a fractured relationship with her adult child made Mother’s Day deeply painful.
She recalled a time when visiting family distracted her from the “gaping hole” left in the group.
“My adult child had not spoken to me for months. The more I tried, the bigger the gap grew. The more questions I asked myself, the deeper I dug myself down the rabbit hole,” Susan told the Herald.
“We sat down at the picnic table, and there, right in the middle, was a memorial plaque to someone’s beloved mother. I started to cry; the tears turned into sobs, and someone else began to cry. She didn’t know why, so we began to laugh.”
“Mother’s Day was hell. The knife in my heart was twisted further by the guilt I felt at having caused the gulf between us. A long-time friend wrote to me and said it was my fault. She said I was a bully. I called her a c**t and told her never to cross my path again,” she said.
It wasn’t until a psychotherapist advised her to consider cutting ties – a moment that made her realise her efforts to reconnect had started to resemble an addiction. Susan found a way to apologise sincerely for what she said had transpired as the hurt caused by busy, daily life.
A relationship podcast by therapist Tina Gilbertson, The Reconnection Club, helped Susan shift her perspective.
“Her no-blame, honest, objective advice proved a turning point in my understanding of where, indeed, I had gone wrong – and how I might fix it.
Now, Susan and her adult child are fully reconciled.
Mike Dinsdale’s mother died six years ago. Growing up in the UK, where Mother’s Day falls three weeks before Easter and coincides with daffodil season, he now honours the day twice.
“Growing up we did not have any money to buy presents for Mam, so we went out and got the daffodils from public spaces to give to her, which she loved,” Dinsdale, editor of the Northland Age, told the Herald.
“But as there are no daffodils here at that time of year, I have a plastic one I wear on that day in honour of her. I also play some Hank Williams and Jim Reeves (her favourite musicians) and contact my siblings in the UK and we reminisce about the ‘old lady’.
“The tales we tell always make me smile and remember the amazing selfless work my Mam did to raise five kids by herself. So I’ve always kept up that day as my Mother’s Day, while the NZ Mother’s Day is for my children’s mother.”
MacDonald’s advice for those grieving on Mother’s Day is simple: “allow the grief”. Taking time to reflect and honour them when Mother’s Day approaches.
“Trying to block or avoid strong feelings can be counterproductive,” he said.
“Sometimes, finding a way to reflect with purpose can help, for instance, having a cake and time to reflect on their birthday. Talking with other family members about them and keeping their memory alive.”
Telling grieving loved ones to just get over it is not helpful.
“Allow them the space to have the feelings, and gently validate, ‘of course you feel that way, it’s perfectly natural’,” says MacDonald.
Regarding social media, where Mother’s Day posts proliferate, MacDonald’s advice is this: “Turn it off! If it’s too upsetting, it is possible to survive without it for a day!”
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