Facing Mother’s Day after the pain of losing a mother

As millions across the globe, honour and praise their wonderful mothers on Mother’s Day on Sunday, spare a thought for those who do not have the luxury of enjoying the warmth, love and comfort of a mom.

Have you ever felt the pain of losing a mother?  It is excruciating, something that you never would have felt in your life.

In this opinion piece, I try to share my pain of losing my mother, but these words will never truly portray what I’m going through. I hope that my thoughts reflected here will ignite the journey, albeit even slowly, in assisting me in coming to terms with the loss of someone who I regarded as the single most important person in my life.

I hope the sentiments I share here also help you to find some solace after losing your mother.

You see, my mother was my life, she was my everything, she was my paradise. She was the one who I turned to for advice because her words of wisdom were gold.

While I have two other siblings, this opinion piece focuses on my pain as I would never be able to fathom what my brothers went through, it focuses on my trials and tribulations.

Like all mothers, my mother was a phenomenal woman who had such strength bestowed upon her by God that no human would be able to decipher.

I do not want to delve into how she raised three little kids after her husband was murdered more than 37 years ago or how she struggled to raise us earning a meagre R400 a month.

What I do want to share is that after her demise my heart slowly started calcifying and I never realized this because this pain was bottled up and it exploded.

You may think I’m exaggerating, but it was her prayers, her love and her caring that made my heart beat. While I know death is inevitable as God says in the Qur’an “every soul shall taste death”, I was hoping that my prayers would allow her to be a little longer among us.

Obviously, God knows best and do not get me wrong, I am not questioning His will because He is the Most Kind and the Most Merciful, but imagine your mother passing away in your arms. My mother did, taking her last breath in my arms. The pain was like a thousand knives all stabbing me at once.

So, while I do appreciate that a special day called Mother’s Day is dedicated to the phenomenal women who gave birth to us, it is not fair to honour your mother on one just one day.

ALSO READ: Quotes and sweet messages to send to your mother in celebration of Mother’s Day

It is sad that Mother’s Day has become a money-making farce that extorts hard earned cash to lavish expensive gifts on our dear mothers when in actual fact the real gift should come from the heart and it should be done every day and not just once a year.

We need to arouse our sentiments and be conscientious of our obligations to our mothers whose challenges and difficulties began prior to us coming into this world.

From the very conception, our mothers were in difficulty. She bore us with pain, she delivered us with pain and she suckled us.

The Holy Qur’an says it took a great portion of two and a half to three years of the strength, energy and ability of the mother in these initial stages and the first development phase of our lives.

The love of a mother is unparalleled. Mothers are everything to us when we are small… our lives revolve around them. There is no day that you are not duty bound to her.

There is simply no way we can ever really thank our mother for all that she has done for us. She is the one who will be awake all night when we are sick. Praying to God to make us well and be ever ready to bear the pain that we may be experiencing. She is the one to wake up early in the morning to make the nicest breakfast and endure all our tantrums.

Mothers are the ones on whom we put all the blame for our failures. We would not hesitate once to point out her single faux pas though she would not miss even the slightest opportunity to praise us.

So let us cherish our mothers every day and not wait a whole year to show her how special she really is. It takes someone brave to be a mother, someone strong to raise a child and someone special to love someone more than herself.

 A mother is someone that is not human, but an angel. Mothers hold their children’s hands for a short while, but their hearts forever.

There are no words that can capture the emotion and the heartache when one loses a mother and the extract by Unknown best describes this:

Hello Operator, does Heaven have a phone number? Mommy went to Heaven, but I need her here today, my tummy hurts and I fell down, I need her right away, Operator can you tell me how to find her in this book. Is heaven in the yellow part, I don’t know where to look. I think my daddy needs her too, at night I hear him cry. I hear him call her name sometimes, but I really don’t know why. Maybe if I call her, she will hurry home to me.

Is Heaven very far away, is it across the sea? She’s been gone a long, long time she needs to come home now! I really need to reach her, but I simply don’t know how. Help me find the number please, is it listed under “Heaven”? I can’t read these big words; I am only seven. I’m sorry operator, I didn’t mean to make you cry, is your tummy hurting too, or is there something in your eye? If I call my church maybe they will know Mommy said when we need help that’s where we should go. I found the number to my church tacked up on the wall. Thank you operator, I’ll give them a call

So, for those who have mothers, cherish them, respect them and put them on a pedestal because once your mother leaves this world, you will never find another mother like her.

ALSO READ: Fun ways to celebrate your wonderful mother this Mother’s Day