Mother’s Day can feel beautiful.
And heartbreaking.
Sometimes all at once.
For some, it is a day of celebration. For others, it highlights the ache of what or who is missing.
We know this not just professionally, but personally.
What many people do not talk about is how confusing it can feel to hold profound gratitude and profound grief in the same heart. To look at your child with overwhelming love while also mourning the pregnancies that never came to be. To celebrate motherhood while grieving the mother you no longer get to call. To feel joy and sadness sitting side by side at the same table.
Mother’s Day can bring all of it to the surface.
We have installed a windphone at Laudan park here in Okotoks as a way to share support in our shared grief. Our community cares about you. We care about you. Grief can feel lonely at times and we hope that our windphone can bring some peace for you.
The Grief That No One Sees on Mother’s Day
Mother’s Day advertisements tell us this day should feel warm, happy, connected, and easy. But for many women, it can feel emotionally exhausting, isolating, and painful.
Behind the flowers and family photos are people silently carrying:
- miscarriage and pregnancy loss
- infertility struggles
- complicated relationships with their mothers
- grief after losing a mother
- grief of losing a child
- postpartum depression and anxiety
- the mental load of motherhood
- longing for the child they hoped for
- guilt for struggling while “having enough”
Grief is rarely simple. Motherhood is rarely simple either.
Pregnancy Loss Changes You
Losing a pregnancy leaves an imprint on the heart that many people cannot fully understand unless they have lived it themselves.
The world often moves on quickly after miscarriage or pregnancy loss, but internally, many women continue carrying:
- sadness
- anxiety
- guilt
- anger
- fear
- emptiness
- hypervigilance in future pregnancies
Some losses are openly acknowledged. Others remain invisible. But invisible grief is still grief.
Mother’s Day can reopen wounds you thought were healing. It can remind you of due dates, dreams, names, or futures you imagined. Even years later, those memories can still ache.
Why So Many Mothers Feel Alone
One of the hardest parts of postpartum mental health struggles is the isolation.
Social media often shows the beautiful moments of motherhood while hiding the exhaustion, identity changes, relationship strain, and emotional overwhelm many mothers quietly carry.
You may find yourself thinking:
- “Other moms seem happier than me.”
- “I should be grateful.”
- “Maybe I’m just not cut out for this.”
These thoughts are incredibly common during postpartum anxiety and depression.
The transition into motherhood is enormous emotionally, mentally, physically, and relationally. Struggling does not mean you are a bad mother. It means you are human.
Infertility Is a Grief Few Talk About Honestly
Infertility can slowly wear down hope, identity, relationships, and emotional well-being.
Month after month, year after year, many people ride an exhausting cycle of hope and disappointment while trying to appear okay on the outside. Baby showers, pregnancy announcements, and Mother’s Day celebrations can feel unbearable when your own journey feels uncertain.
One of the hardest parts of infertility is the loneliness.
People may offer advice, toxic positivity, or comments like:
- “Just relax.”
- “It will happen when it’s meant to.”
- “At least you already have one child.”
But two things can be true at once:
You can deeply love the child you have and still grieve the children you imagined.
You can feel grateful and heartbroken at the same time.
Losing Your Mother Changes Mother’s Day Forever
There is something uniquely painful about Mother’s Day after losing your mother.
Even if the loss happened years ago, the grief can return unexpectedly; in a commercial, a memory, a scent, or the instinct to pick up the phone before remembering you cannot. For this reason we have installed the windphone here in Laudan Park, Okotoks.
Sometimes we grieve not only the person we lost, but the moments we still wanted with them:
- watching them become grandparents
- asking them for advice
- hearing their voice one more time
- feeling cared for ourselves
Mother’s Day can intensify the realization that while you may now be the mother caring for others, you still miss being someone’s daughter too.
Loss Of A Child
Mother’s Day can also carry the unbearable weight of grieving a child.
For mothers who have experienced miscarriage, stillbirth, infant loss, or the death of a child at any age, this day can feel like standing in two worlds at once: one where love still exists deeply, and another where someone you love so much is painfully missing.
While others celebrate, many mothers quietly carry memories, empty spaces, unanswered questions, and a love that never had the chance to fully unfold. Grief on Mother’s Day can show up as sadness, anger, numbness, guilt, longing, or even silence. There is no “right” way to move through it.
A mother does not stop being a mother because her child is no longer here.
Love does not disappear with loss.
For some, Mother’s Day may mean lighting a candle, visiting a grave, holding onto ultrasound photos, speaking a child’s name, calling them on our windphone, or simply surviving the day hour by hour. And for others, it may mean avoiding the day altogether. All are valid.
You Are Allowed to Feel Both Love and Sadness
This is something I wish more mothers heard:
Loving your child deeply does not erase your grief.
Being thankful does not cancel pain.
Motherhood does not make loss disappear.
Joy does not invalidate sorrow.
You are allowed to celebrate your child while mourning what you lost.
You are allowed to smile in one moment and cry in the next.
You are allowed to find Mother’s Day complicated.
Human emotions are not either/or. They are often both/and.
If Mother’s Day Feels Heavy This Year
Please know you do not have to force yourself to perform happiness.
It is okay to:
- step away from social media
- decline plans
- honour your loss privately
- create new traditions
- talk about your grief
- ask for support
- protect your emotional energy
Most importantly, you do not have to carry these feelings alone.
At True Living Counselling & Coaching Inc, we support individuals navigating infertility, pregnancy loss, grief, perinatal mental health, and the emotional complexities of motherhood with authenticity, compassion, honesty, and care.
Because sometimes Mother’s Day is not only about celebration.
Sometimes it is also about survival, remembrance, healing, and holding love alongside loss. Our team here at True Living Counselling & Coaching Inc would be honoured to walk along side you.
