Spare a thought and a prayer for the grieving mother

I’ve got a mother in mind who could do with our thoughts and prayers this Mother’s Day.  A recent agony has been visited on her.  It tipped her into a lament from which she cannot escape.  Don’t be afraid you’ll upset her by acknowledging her loss.  In acknowledgment, she is seen.  Spare a thought for her... and a prayer.

She did not choose motherhood; motherhood chose her.  And this goes some way to explaining what it is that life has become.  This is reason enough to accept that her ‘lot’ is what it is, and that rather than ‘being talked around’ she just needs our ears and heart.  Don’t be afraid you’ll upset her by acknowledging her sorrow.  Spare a thought for her... and a prayer.

She had to say goodbye to the one she housed in the womb, gave birth to, and nursed.  Whether they lived sixty minutes or sixty years, a part of her died when they died.  Whether they never existed or were alive only in the womb matters little when hopes are crushed.  There is something innately unfair in the loss of a child at any age.  It’s not the right order of things.  Don’t be afraid you’ll upset her by acknowledging her loss — she wants her precious daughter or son remembered, because remembrance is all she has left.  Spare a thought for her... and a prayer.

She had to say goodbye to the hopes she had for her child.  It was a learning difficulty, a disorder, a syndrome, a handicap, that, due no fault to anyone, sees their child consigned to a destiny.  It was an adult child that wandered and never returned, who sought their fame or freedom and is trapped in another world.  It was a child whose dreams were quashed, and that reality was a double-layered tragedy to a parent whose prayers succumbed to factors ever out of their own control.  This mother has had to say goodbye in so many ways.  Don’t be afraid you’ll upset her by acknowledging those hopes that were dashed — acknowledgement is understanding and empathy, packaged in care.  Spare a thought for her... and a prayer.

She is lost for the anguish of a loss that never was.  Everyone that motherhood calls is a mother by that calling.  It’s not about children, for so many live with no passage to the materialization of a vision so primal it’s a constant preoccupation.  ‘Barrenness’ is the cruellest of eventualities to a person built and purposed for raising children.  Don’t be afraid you’ll upset her by acknowledging her ambiguous loss — she will probably cry, but in that is created the space for care and support.  Spare a thought for her... and a prayer.

She is mother to a child who suffers just now, a suffering that has either only just begun or a suffering that has worn them both ragged.  The parent suffers a reprehensible grief for the anguish a child cannot escape from.  She cannot help and she would do anything to relieve a modicum of pressure.  She has no hopes remaining for herself, for she poured all those hopes into their son or daughter long ago.  Her heart was sold at conception, and she can but suffer along vicariously.  Don’t be afraid you’ll upset her by acknowledging her child’s plight; it honours them.  Spare a thought for her... and a prayer.

She is the abandoned mother.  The one who gave ascent to family with a partner who promised her the world yet left or abused her and her children.  Don’t be afraid you’ll upset her by acknowledging her pain; she could do with your belief and encouragement that she can do this on her own.  Spare a thought for her... and a prayer.

She is the mother haunted by her own childhood, having suffered horrendously at the hand of adults who should’ve been safe but weren’t, or were left at the mercy of unsafe children.  Don’t be afraid you’ll upset her by acknowledging her trauma; she could not only do with your belief, she could do with your understanding at the times she doesn’t understand herself.  Spare a thought for her... and a prayer.

Just spare a thought for her... and a prayer.  And don’t forget the Dads, either.

And don’t forget the mothers who have no cause for grief at all.  Let’s be thankful for their joy, wherever there’s the absence of pain.

Photo by S&B Vonlanthen on Unsplash