"Honoring Complexity: Holding Space for Pain on Mother's Day"
For a lot of us, holidays like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day can be emotionally loaded. Whether that be because our relationships with our parent(s) wasn’t one that can be conveyed well simply, or if reminders of them at all fills you with deep feelings of sadness, pain, or anything else. When it feels like the rest of the world has such a positive experience with those who can hold such powerful places in our lives when we may not have, a holiday that acknowledges how important that position is can be triggering. In my experience, many more of us than you would expect have either experienced loss, estrangement, or other situations in which we do not have a parent in our lives.
It's also a fraught holiday if you have your own feelings around becoming a mother or parent, whether in a positive way or in a sense of grieving and loss. So many of us know this Sunday isn’t just a “brunch” holiday, but one in which carries a lot of emotional weight.
I can’t say any of us have the “answer” on how best to handle these holidays, but I have found that acknowledging those people in my life who did feel like a bit of a mother or a guiding light to me when I can’t celebrate my own has brought me a bit of peace. Building my own family, whether a legal or found family have been what has brought me closer to a feeling of completeness. If you would like to help celebrate someone who you feel like has filled that role for you, Atria Collective has our Caregiver cards you can send to someone you want to know is important to you in that way, even if you can’t celebrate in the traditional way. But all of us here at Atria wish you peace, love and the knowledge to know you aren’t alone.
Alexis Caswell
Atria Collective Board Member