Mother’s Day doesn’t land the same for everyone, and I think that’s something we need to shed more light on. For some, it’s light and easy, flowers picked up on the way to brunch, cards written with simple gratitude, hugs that feel familiar and grounding. It’s laughter across the table, shared stories, the comfort of having someone who has always been there sitting right in front of you. And if that’s your experience, it’s beautiful. It really is.
But for others, it’s different. Quieter. Heavier in ways that don’t always have words.
It’s missing my mom in the small, ordinary moments that somehow feel the biggest today. It’s reaching for my phone without thinking, just to remember there’s no one on the other end to call. It’s hearing something funny or meaningful and instinctively wanting to share it with her, only to sit with that pause when you realize you can’t. It’s the kind of absence that doesn’t always look loud from the outside, but feels so consuming on the inside.
It’s walking into spaces where Mother’s Day is being celebrated all around you. Tables filled with moms and daughters, sons, hugs that linger, quick kisses on the cheek, the effortless closeness that so many people still have. And you find yourself there too, smiling, participating, being present… but also quietly aware that your experience of the day doesn’t quite match what’s happening around you. It’s not jealousy, it’s not bitterness. It’s just a subtle feeling of not fully belonging in that version of the moment.
And then there’s the part that feels complicated to explain.. You can genuinely love and appreciate the mothers in your life. The ones who have supported you, guided you, opened their homes to you, treated you like their own in ways that mattered more than they probably even realize. You can feel so much gratitude for them, so much warmth toward them, and still carry a deep, steady grief for your own at the exact same time.
That’s the part no one really prepares you for, the coexistence of it all. The way love doesn’t cancel out loss. The way gratitude doesn’t erase longing. The way you can sit at a table surrounded by kindness and still feel that quiet ache underneath it all. We sit across tables with full families just wishing you had one, but you do right on front of you.
Some people cry on days like mothers day. Some people stay busy so they don’t have to feel it too deeply. Some people feel okay for most of the day and then it hits them out of nowhere. And some people don’t even know what they feel—they just know something is off, something is different, something doesn’t sit quite right.
However it shows up for you… it’s valid.
There isn’t a “right way” to move through a day like this. There isn’t a perfect balance between honoring what you’ve lost and appreciating what you still have. You don’t have to perform happiness, and you don’t have to isolate yourself from it either. You’re allowed to laugh and still feel the absence. You’re allowed to celebrate others and still miss your own. You’re allowed to hold both, even when it feels confusing.
And maybe that’s what mothers day really is for some of us. Not just a celebration, but a quiet reflection of the love that still exists, even when the person isn’t physically here to receive it. Because that love doesn’t go anywhere. It changes shape, it softens in some places and deepens in others, but it stays.
So if it feels heavy, or strange, or just different in a way you can’t quite explain, you’re not alone in that feeling. There are so many of us sitting in that same in-between space, loving, remembering, appreciating, and grieving all at once.
And if that’s where you are this mothers day, just know… there’s nothing wrong with you for feeling it. There’s actually something really human, really honest, and really beautiful in it too. 🤍
xoxo, alli<3
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