Mother’s Day has always lived in my body more than on the calendar. It’s a day that doesn’t just arrive – it activates. It stirs old memories, awakens quiet aches, and reminds me of the complicated truth of my story: I didn’t grow up with the mother I needed, but I was mothered by women who chose me. And now, as an adult, I carry the grief of losing the woman who raised me, while honoring the blessing of the mother-figure I have today.
For empaths, Mother’s Day isn’t simple. It’s layered. It’s tender. It’s heavy and holy all at once.
The First Mother-Wound
I was placed in my father’s custody at six weeks old. I didn’t grow up knowing my mother couldn’t give me emotional presence – I grew up simply without it. As I got older, the truth revealed itself in small, painful ways: the birthday calls that didn’t come, the holiday messages that arrived late, the sense that she never fought for me.
But I wasn’t left without love.
When my dad brought me back to my grandmother’s home – sick, underweight, and struggling – she stepped in immediately. She cared for me with the steadiness and devotion that only someone who truly loves you can give. She never tried to take my mother’s place. She simply showed up in all the ways a mother should.
One of my earliest emotional memories is from Rugrats in Paris. There’s a scene where all the babies dance with their moms, and Chucky stands alone because his mother has passed. I would sob every time. My mother was alive, but she wasn’t there – and my little body understood that long before I had words for it.
Back then, I cried because I didn’t have a mom.
Now, as an adult, I cry because I lost the woman who never claimed the title of “mom,” yet gave me the kind of love and care that shaped me like a mother would.
Mother’s Day was never about my biological mother’s absence – we spent that day celebrating my grandma. But now, without her, the day carries a different ache.
Quiet Processing: The Weight I Carry Inside
As a teenager, the absence of a mother became louder. Puberty arrived with questions I didn’t know how to ask and emotions I didn’t know how to hold. My grandma did her best, but her generation didn’t talk about those things. I learned most of it alone.
Even now, I process grief quietly. I hold it in my chest, in my breath, in the silence behind my ribs. I don’t often talk about what Mother’s Day stirs in me, and that makes it heavier. Most people around me still have their mothers – and sometimes that makes my grief feel invisible.
Part of the weight comes from the double grief:
I’m not just grieving what I didn’t have.
I’m grieving the woman I did have – and losing her at 27 still echoes through this season.
Somatic Memory: The Body Remembers First
My body always knows when Mother’s Day is approaching.
There’s a deep, sinking heaviness in my chest – like my ribs are holding a memory before my mind catches up. My breathing slows. My shoulders tense. My stomach tightens. It’s a familiar ache that whispers, This day touches places you’ve carried for a long time.
This year feels especially heavy. I’m turning 30 without my grandma or my dad – the two people who raised me. Their angel-versaries in February and March left me numb, but May has cracked something open. Mother’s Day. My birthday. Milestones I thought they’d be here for.
My body felt it long before my mind did.
Spiritual Roots: The Sacred Women God Sent Me
I was raised to honor and endure, which makes Mother’s Day spiritually tangled. But I also see the sacredness in the women God placed in my life.
My grandma was my best friend – a God-fearing woman who taught me faith, resilience, and what it means to show up for someone. She wasn’t perfect, but she was present. And presence is everything.
And then there’s my mother-in-law – a woman I don’t even call an “in-law.” She’s Momma. She has loved me as her own from the moment I entered her family. She is another guardian angel in my life, another example of what mothering can look like when it’s given freely and wholeheartedly.
I was mothered – not by the woman who gave birth to me, but by the women who chose me.
What My Body Teaches Me Now
A clear sign my Mother’s Day grief is activating:
A heavy, sinking feeling in my chest – the kind that tells me an old memory has stirred.
How I tell an old wound from a current trigger:
Old wounds feel younger. They sound like the little girl trying at a cartoon wedding scene or the teenager wishing she has a mom to talk to. Current triggers feel grounded in adulthood – missing my grandma, wishing she were here for milestones, feeling the absence of the people who raised me.
One simple way I ground myself:
I place a hand over my heart, breathe slowly, and say the names of he women who love(d) me: my grandma and my mother-in-law.
It reminds me that even though I didn’t have the mother I wanted, I was still mothered – and that truth softens the heaviness just enough to breathe again.
All of This to Say…
I didn’t grow up with my biological mother, and there is grief in that – grief for what I thought I should have had.
I did grow up with a grandmother who cared for me with the devotion of a mother, without ever trying to take the title. Losing her brought a different kind of grief – the grief of losing the woman who raised me.
And I have been blessed with a mother-in-law who loves me as her own, who continues the lineage of women who stepped in where my biological mother could not.
Mother’s Day is complicated for empaths like me.
It’s heavy and holy.
It’s grief and gratitude.
It’s absence and abundance.
And if you feel that too – if this day opens old wounds or awakens tender memories – you’re not alone. Your body remembers because your story matters.
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