Mother’s Day can be complicated for many people, but when you are parenting bereaved children as a sole parent, the day can carry a particularly heavy emotional weight. WAY Widowed and Young member Astrid Dolan shares her reflections as she faces her second Mother’s Day as a widowed mum.
This year, Mother’s Day falls just a week after my youngest turns three. The timing alone feels like an emotional rollercoaster. Birthdays in a bereaved family are filled with joy and celebration (but also sadness), and also a firm acknowledgement of who should be there and who isn’t. And then, almost immediately afterwards, comes a day designed to celebrate motherhood.
I am a mum. Very much so. I am here every day doing the job with everything I have. But Mother’s Day, when you are parenting alone after loss, can feel hollow in ways that are difficult to explain.
At three and five, my children are still very young. They are full of love, affection and joy, but they are too little to organise a card, make a plan, or create the excitement around celebrating their mum. There is no one guiding them to draw a picture for me, or taking them to buy a small present, or helping them whisper excitedly about surprises. And I know that might sound a little indulgent to say out loud. But when you spend every day pouring yourself into raising your children, cooking their meals, washing their clothes, brushing curls, doing the school runs, taking them to birthday parties, wiping tears, carrying them when they’re tired, loving them with every fibre of your being; a small moment of acknowledgement can mean a lot.
Young children feel love deeply, but they don’t yet have the words or the understanding to express it. In many families, another adult helps translate those big feelings into action: encouraging them to make a card, helping them say thank you, creating that sense of excitement around celebrating Mum.
When you become a sole parent, that layer quietly disappears.
Being mum and dad
In many ways, I am now doing the job of both mum and dad; it often feels like double the work. When my children’s dad was alive, I was still doing the everyday work of being their mum: the school runs, the meals, the laundry, the bedtime routines. But there was someone alongside me who saw that work and helped to relieve the load. Someone who created those little moments of appreciation on days like Mother’s Day.
Now I am doing two roles, but with no one overseeing it. No one helping the children articulate their love or gratitude. No one creating the small moments that make a day of recognition feel real.
If I’m honest, the greatest gift I could imagine on Mother’s Day isn’t flowers or presents. It would simply be knowing that my children were receiving the same level of love and care that they receive from me, from someone else too.
To wake up in the morning and hear laughter, excitement and happiness in the house that isn’t being organised or led by me, but by another adult who loves them. To have a hot cup of tea placed into my hands and be told to sit down and relax. To watch my children playing happily while someone else holds the responsibility for a moment.
Not because I don’t want to care for them, but because the anxiety of sole parenthood is knowing that there is no one else coming along to carry that level of care alongside you.
Grief changes you as a parent
Last year was my first Mother’s Day since everything changed.
I was only two months into grief, and at that stage the loneliness and pain felt chaotic and overwhelming. My own mum was away on holiday so I took the children out for breakfast and sat in a packed café surrounded by families celebrating the day. Children were excitedly handing over cards. Dads were taking photos of mums with their children. There was laughter and celebration everywhere.
It was beautiful to see mothers being deservedly celebrated and families enjoying that moment together. But sitting there, right in the middle of it, I felt the stark contrast of our new reality.
Afterwards, we were kindly invited to my parents-in-law’s house for lunch. At one point I slipped away into a bedroom, closed the door and cried hard. The weight of everything felt unbearable in that moment; grief, exhaustion, and the realisation of just how much our lives had changed.
Parenting through grief is relentless. There are no days off. No one to hand the children to when you need to pause and catch your breath.
After more than a year of carrying everything alone, the exhaustion can feel immense. And yet the day designed to celebrate that work can arrive feeling strangely flat.
Grief also changes you as a parent
I am a different mum today than I was 14 months ago. My children are different children. Our family has been reshaped by loss, and that inevitably changes how we move through the world together.
Before, motherhood felt expansive. I looked at my children and saw a future full of limitless possibility and joy. Now things feel more fragile. Grief has a way of making you acutely aware of how quickly life can change. The edges of life feel closer. The future feels less certain. That awareness inevitably shapes how you parent.
But alongside that grief is something else too: resilience.
Every day, bereaved parents wake up and continue loving their children fiercely. We continue showing up for school runs, packed lunches, bedtime stories and playground visits. We continue building childhoods for our children, even while carrying our own grief.
Mother’s Day may look different for families like ours. It may be quieter, more complicated, and sometimes lonelier.
But the love that sits at the heart of it is still there.
For any parent navigating Mother’s Day after loss, especially those raising bereaved children alone, it’s ok if the day feels difficult. It’s ok if it holds both gratitude and grief at the same time.
Parenting through bereavement requires extraordinary strength. And simply showing up each day, loving your children through the hardest of circumstances, is something worth recognising.
About WAY
Astrid is a member of the charity WAY Widowed and Young – a community that offers a safe space to talk to other people (both with and without children) who understand how it feels to be widowed at a young age.
Find out how WAY can support you, if you’ve been widowed before your 51st birthday, at www.widowedandyoung.org.uk
You can find Astrid on Instagram @astriddolan
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