By Brooke, mum to Ariella
Tomorrow is Mothers Day, well in Australia anyway. Mothers day has always been my favourite day, not only to celebrate my mother, mother in law, grandmothers and all mothers. But mostly, I always loved it because I used it as an excuse to take a break from being a mum. Crazy right? Happy Mothers Day to me – kids I love that you would say it in the morning and made me gifts and gave me the extra cuddles - now go with your Papa so I can be alone. Its my get out of jail free card. I get the whole day to make excuses for why I’m not cooking dinner, cleaning, dealing with tantrums, any of it. Oh sweetie you need to go to the toilet? BAM – Mothers Day card, you’re up Papa, you can redeem this credit on Fathers Day. And it’s not like I never get a break any other day, I have an amazing husband and I can take “me time” whenever I need it, but this day was my 24hrs of hand-balling any task I wanted to.
This used to be my ideal Mothers Day, honestly. Then I met HER.
The woman who lost her child…. just a little baby. A little baby that suffered with the same disorder as Ariella. I will not pretend that I know that woman’s pain, or grief or suffering, because I don’t. I feel it on a scale so diluted compared to her. But she and her child changed my life. SHE will have her Mothers Days as a mother, but without the little homemade gifts from her angel baby, without the burnt toast in bed that they tried to make you in the morning, without the suffocating arms around her neck because they give you all the extra hugs that day.
How selfish was I, that on the one day of the year where my kids want to love me that bit more, I wanted to be away from them? How will this woman ever know, that her indescribable pain she is going through on her motherhood journey, has made me a better mother? How do I tell her that my kid’s lives are better, because of her and her child that she welcomed into the world, and then had to say goodbye to?
Will she ever know that because of her my priorities are different? I love a little harder, have a little extra patience, take a little extra time. Don’t get me wrong, I still need my breaks, but the emphasis is different, the feeling is different.
So on this Mother’s Day, whilst we celebrate all mothers, because we are all doing the best we can, I am thinking of HER. The one who has forever changed me, and whose child was not only a precious gift to their family, but a gift to mine.
