What No One Says About Mother's Day When You Are Grieving: A Letter for the Ones Who Find This Day Hard
Mother's Day is four days away. And if you are grieving, you can already feel it coming.
You do not need to wait until Sunday for the weight of it to arrive. For many people, it starts building now. In the grocery store displays. In the gift guides that keep appearing in your inbox. In the quiet that opens up when someone mentions it in passing and you have to decide, in a second, what your face is going to do.
This is why I am writing to you today, not on Sunday. Because by Sunday you will have already needed this. And I would rather you have it now, while there is still space to breathe before the day itself arrives.
This is not a guide to getting through the day. It is not a list of coping strategies. It is simply an honest acknowledgment that your grief is real, that it belongs here, and that the complexity of what you are feeling is not a problem to be solved.
The Many Shapes of Mother's Day Grief
Grief on Mother's Day does not look the same for everyone. And one of the most isolating parts of it is the assumption that grief means only one thing: that your mother has died.
But Mother's Day grief lives in many places.
IF YOUR MOTHER HAS DIED
The first Mother's Day after a loss is its own kind of devastation. But so is the fifth. And the fifteenth. Grief does not expire on a schedule, and the expectation that it should is one of the most quietly cruel things our culture asks of people who have lost a mother. You are allowed to still be grieving. There is no deadline on love.
IF YOUR MOTHER IS ALIVE BUT THE RELATIONSHIP IS PAINFUL
This grief is one of the least named and least validated. You see the Mother's Day posts and feel something complicated: love and loss at the same time. Longing for a relationship that does not exist. Grief for a mother who is present but not the mother you needed. This is real grief. It deserves the same tenderness.
IF YOU ARE SOUTH ASIAN AND YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR MOTHER IS LAYERED
Many South Asian clients describe a particular kind of ambivalence on days like this one. A mother who sacrificed everything and was also emotionally unavailable. A love that was enormous and also conditional in ways that were never spoken. A longing to simply say I love you without the weight of everything unresolved between you. That complexity is not ingratitude. It is honesty.
IF YOU HAVE LOST A CHILD
Mother's Day can be one of the most painful days of the year for mothers grieving a pregnancy loss, an infant, a child of any age. Your motherhood is real. Your loss is real. And you deserve to be seen in this grief, not around it.
IF YOU WANTED TO BE A MOTHER AND IT DID NOT HAPPEN
Infertility, circumstance, the slow closing of a door you never got to walk through. This grief is often carried in silence because it is not the kind of grief that gets a funeral or a casserole. It is quiet and enormous and it belongs here too.
IF YOUR MOTHER HAD MENTAL ILLNESS, ADDICTION, OR COULD NOT CARE FOR YOU
You may have spent your childhood parenting your parent, or hoping for a version of her she could not quite be. You may love her and grieve her and feel both at once. Both are allowed. They do not cancel each other out.
"Grief does not require a death certificate. It requires only that something you loved, or needed, or longed for could not be what you hoped."
What Happens in the Body Before a Day Like This
For those who have experienced loss or relational pain around a mother figure, the days leading up to Mother's Day can activate the grief response in ways that feel disproportionate to the moment. You might find yourself heavier than usual this week. Irritable without a clear reason. Crying at something small. Unable to explain why you are already dreading Sunday when it is still days away.
This is not you being dramatic. This is how grief works. Anniversaries, holidays, and culturally significant days carry emotional weight that is stored in the body alongside explicit memory. The nervous system recognizes what is coming even before the calendar confirms it.
You are not behind in your grief. You are not failing at healing. Your body is doing exactly what it was designed to do, which is to hold what you have loved.
A moment to reflect:
What does this day bring up for you? Not what should it bring up. What does it actually bring up, when you sit quietly with it?
A Word Specifically for South Asian Women
In many South Asian households, the mother is the emotional center of everything. She holds the family together. She sacrifices without naming it as sacrifice. She loves in a language of service, of food, of showing up, even when she could not always show up in the ways that healed.
And so for many South Asian daughters, Mother's Day carries a particular weight. Not just grief for a mother who has died, but something more complicated. The grief of a relationship that was full of love and also full of things that were never said. The grief of needing to be mothered in ways that were not available. The grief of watching your own mother carry a weight no one helped her with, and not knowing how to reach her across it.
You can love your mother deeply and still grieve the relationship you wish you had.
You can honor her sacrifice and still feel the cost of what was missing.
Both are true at the same time. That is not confusion. That is a love that is big enough to hold complexity.
"You are allowed to love someone and grieve them at the same time. That is not a contradiction. That is what it means to love a whole person."
What Might Help in the Days Ahead
Not a formula. Just a few gentle options for between now and Sunday, and for the day itself.
Name what you are actually grieving
Sometimes grief becomes more manageable when it is specific rather than ambient. Are you grieving her absence? The relationship you had? The relationship you never got to have? The mother you wish she could have been? Naming it gives the grief somewhere to land.
Give yourself permission to feel it before Sunday arrives
You do not have to wait until the day itself to tend to this. If the feeling is already here, you are allowed to honor it now. Light a candle tonight. Write something you have been carrying. Give the grief a small, honest ritual before the noise of the day begins.
Do not perform okayness on Sunday
If the day is hard, you do not owe anyone a version of yourself that pretends otherwise. You can say, honestly, that today is a complicated day for you. That is enough.
Let yourself be held by someone who knows
Grief is not meant to be carried in isolation. If there is someone in your life who knows what this day is for you, let them sit with you in it. And if there is not, know that therapy can be that space. A place to bring what is too heavy to carry alone.
Extend the same gentleness to yourself that you would to anyone else
If a friend told you they were struggling in the days before Mother's Day, you would not tell them to push through it. You would sit with them. You would say: of course this is hard. Be that person for yourself this week.
"Whatever this day holds for you, your grief is not too much. It is evidence of how deeply you loved, or hoped to love, or needed to be loved. That is not a burden. That is your humanity."
If you are reading this before Sunday and already feeling the weight of what is coming, that feeling is valid. You do not have to wait until the day itself to give your grief some space. There are more people sitting quietly with complicated feelings this week than the flower shop windows suggest.
Your grief belongs here. You belong here. And when you are ready to talk about it, I am here.
About the Author
Ashma Hakani, LCSW-S is a licensed clinical social worker and the founder of Renewed Hope Therapy, PLLC. She specializes in grief, trauma, anxiety, and relationship issues, providing compassionate, culturally competent, and trauma-informed care. With over 18 years of experience, she utilizes evidence-based approaches to support her clients in building resilience and coping skills. Ashma also offers clinical supervision and mental health education to individuals and communities. Her work is rooted in the belief that healing is a journey, and she is dedicated to walking alongside her clients every step of the way.
Intake Line: (832) 819-4128
