Navigating Mother’s Day Through Grief, Distance, and Everything In Between

Mother's Day. The flower displays bloom in grocery store aisles. The pastel cards line up in neat rows. Your inbox is flooded with gift guides and Mother's Day sales. But, for many of us, this holiday isn't always as cheerful. It feels like a celebration that was designed for someone else's life.

If you, too, are navigating this day with a bit of anxiety, sadness, or feelings you can't quite put into words, just know you aren't alone and there is no single right way to get through this day. Or, if you have a friend you're looking to support through this holiday, this is exactly the space to do that, too. 

With that being said, this is a love letter to anyone trying to navigate this day, and a few ways to be gentler with yourself while you do, no matter your situation.

When Miles Stand Between You

If you're separated by an ocean, a time zone, or simply the geography of the life you've built. Distance can make holidays feel like they're highlighting everything you're missing.

There's a particular ache in scrolling past photos of people at Sunday brunch with their mothers when you're 4,000 miles away, or when the best you can do is a video call, but you can't quite hug her through the screen. Here are a few ways to soak up the holiday from a distance:

• Send her something: A handwritten letter, a small package, her favorite candle, a photo book. This way, it feels like she's with you even if you're not in the same room.

• Schedule uninterrupted time: A real conversation, uninterrupted. Cook dinner together on Zoom. Watch a movie together on FaceTime. Just talk and catch up. Let the call be long enough to actually feel like you're stopping by.

• Celebrate next time you see each other: Mother's Day can be any day of the year. If you're planning on seeing her soon, schedule something to make it feel like you're celebrating the holiday together, even if the calendar doesn't say so.

• Create a small ritual you share: Brew the same tea at the same time. Watch her favorite movie. Get the same ingredients and cook a meal miles apart.

When You're Still Waiting for the Second Line

Mother's Day may be the toughest holiday when you are in the middle of trying to become a mother.

Our hearts go out to everyone waiting for that second line to appear. To those in the quiet grief of a miscarriage, no one knew about. To those deep in the exhausting, expensive, hope-and-heartbreak rhythm of fertility treatments. To those who have started to wonder if it will ever happen, and to those who have made the painful peace of accepting that it won't look the way they imagined. Here are a few ideas for how to spend the day and give yourself a little breathing room:

• Go somewhere without a feed: A hike, a beach walk, a farmers market, somewhere that keeps your hands and eyes busy and away from the scroll.

• Lose yourself in something: A movie marathon, a new series, a book you can't put down. Permission to fully escape is not avoidance.

• Spend it with someone who knows: A friend who understands what you're going through, no explanation required. You don't have to talk about it. Just being known and not alone is its own kind of relief.

• Do something entirely for your body: A long bath, a massage, a slow meal you actually savor. Your body has been working so hard; take a little time to slow down.

• Write it down somewhere private: A journal entry, a letter to the future, a note to yourself. Getting the feelings out of your head and onto a page can be a breath of fresh air.

• Mute without guilt: The group chats, the accounts that sting today — all of it can wait. You can unmute later.

When the Relationship Is Complicated

Not every mother-daughter relationship looks like the ones on greeting cards. Some of us are no-contact. Some of us had mothers who were absent, harmful, or simply incapable of giving us what we needed. Some of us are still in the middle of the ongoing, exhausting work of loving a difficult person.

If this is you...If Mother's Day stirs not just sadness but anger, confusion, or grief for a relationship that never quite was what it should have been, that is entirely real and entirely valid. You are allowed to love someone and also acknowledge the ways they hurt you. You are allowed to grieve someone who's still alive and a relationship that never was.

A few things that may help you hold the complexity of today:

• Let yourself grieve: The relationship you needed and didn't fully get is a real loss.
• Reach for people who know your story: Therapy, journaling, a trusted friend who doesn't need the backstory, lean on them.
• Protect your peace online: Social media on Mother's Day can feel like a world that only knows one version of this relationship. You are allowed to step away from it entirely.

When Grief Is the Guest You Didn't Invite

Grief doesn't follow a calendar, but the world sometimes seems to insist it should be resolved by now, tucked away, manageable. Mother's Day has a way of undoing that.

What the cards and commercials don't capture is that grief isn't a straight line. It's the smell of her perfume in a department store, three years later, that stops you cold. It's laughing at something she would have loved, then feeling the floor drop out beneath that laughter. Some things that can help on these days:

• Light a candle for her: It sounds simple, and it is, but there's something about a small flame that holds space in a way that feels sacred rather than performative.

• Look at photographs, or don't: Both are valid. Some years the memories are a comfort; other years they crack you open. Trust yourself to know which kind of day this is.

• Cook her recipe, even badly: Fill the kitchen, make a mess, let it smell like her again. It's okay if it's not perfectly the way she made it; it's the act of attempting all in itself.

• Write her a letter: Say the things you didn't get to say, or say them again. Getting it out of your body and onto paper is its own kind of release.

• Say her name out loud: To a friend, to yourself, to no one. Don't just keep it all in your head; share a few memories.

• Allow yourself the full range: The sadness, yes — but also the warmth of memory, the laughter at something she would have loved. Grief and gratitude can share the same breath.

Whatever your particular version of hard, we hope these ideas are some ways to move through Mother's Day with a little more grace toward yourself.

As a reminder, you are allowed to feel all of it. Every emotion. And, wherever you find yourself this year — grieving, navigating, surviving, honoring, avoiding, reflecting — you can make it through this day.