A Grieving Daughter, A Greatful Mother

 

Forty-Six Days

Tomorrow is my birthday.

Forty-six days ago, I lost my mum, and I still don't know how to make sense of that sentence.

People often talk about grief as if it's a journey, a process, or a series of stages. For me, it has felt more like an emotional roller coaster that I never agreed to get on. One moment I feel numb. The next, I feel overwhelmed. Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I stare into space. Sometimes I laugh at something and immediately feel guilty for laughing at all.

The truth is, I don't know how to man oeuvre my emotions right now. I don't know what I'm supposed to think, feel, or do.

I keep asking myself the same question: Why did this happen so soon?

No matter how many times I ask it, the answer never comes.

I wasn't ready. I needed more time. More conversations. More ordinary days. More birthdays. More chances to tell my mum the things that now feel trapped inside me.

Lately, I've found myself scrolling through old messages. I came across a birthday message she sent me last year. A message that seemed so ordinary when I received it. At the time, it was just a birthday message from my mum.

Now it feels like something sacred.

I read her words and remember that there was a version of my life where she was still here. A version where I could pick up the phone and hear her voice. A version where I didn't know what was coming.

And that hurts more than I can explain.

Tomorrow is my birthday, and I don't feel like celebrating.

Maybe that sounds strange. Birthdays are supposed to be happy. They're supposed to be about cake, cards, messages, and looking ahead.

But all I can think about is the person who won't be sending me a birthday message this year.

The person whose absence has changed everything.

There is another layer to all of this that I have been struggling to put into words.

I am not just a daughter grieving the loss of her mum. I am also a mother.

And while I don't feel like celebrating, I have two children who do.

They don't see the emptiness that I see. They don't feel the silence where my mum's birthday message should be. They simply know it's their mum's birthday and want to celebrate it.

Part of me wants to withdraw from the day completely. To treat it like any other day and let it pass unnoticed. But another part of me knows that my children are excited. They want to make cards, sing Happy Birthday, and create memories together.

That creates a strange conflict inside me.

I feel guilty for not wanting to celebrate.

I feel guilty for wanting to celebrate.

I feel guilty for smiling.

I feel guilty for being sad.

The truth is that the one person I want there tomorrow is the one person who cannot be there.

My children will be around me. Family and friends may send messages. People may wish me a happy birthday. Yet there will still be a space that nobody can fill.

Because children and parents occupy different places in our hearts.

My children bring me joy, purpose, and a reason to keep moving forward. They remind me that life continues, even when grief tells me to stand still.

But they cannot replace my mum.

Nobody can.

I think one of the hardest parts of grief is that the world keeps moving. The calendar keeps turning. Birthdays still arrive. Seasons still change. People still ask how I'm doing.

Meanwhile, part of me is standing still, trying to understand how my life became divided into a before and an after.

So perhaps tomorrow won't be a celebration in the traditional sense.

Perhaps it will simply be a day where I allow myself to be both things at once: a grieving daughter and a grateful mother.

A woman missing her mum while being loved by her children.

A woman carrying loss while still receiving love.

And maybe that is what grief is teaching me.

Not how to stop loving the person I have lost, but how to keep loving the people who are still here while carrying the absence of the person who is gone.

I don't have a neat ending for this.

I don't have a lesson, or a breakthrough, or a piece of wisdom that makes the pain make sense.

All I know is that I miss my mum.

I miss her more than I can put into words.

And forty-six days later, I am still learning how to carry that reality with me.

Maybe that's enough for now.

Mum i miss you more and more each day.

Love Lena 💖💖💖