Last week I sat on the couch in my therapist’s office and hugged a cushion to my chest, comforted by the soft yellow glow of lamplight as late autumn rain fell steadily upon the brick pavers outside his office.

We have been working through the years of my childhood that left me most damaged, bringing the trauma of those years to the surface and allowing it to be wholly felt, processed and released. The betrayal. The abuse. The neglect. The abandonment.

I have been angry for so long but in this session I tell him I do not feel angry anymore. That I am just... sad. Tears spill down my cheeks faster than I can wipe them away and he tells me that after trauma has left the body all that remains is the sadness. That we are left only with the remnants of grief; the sorrow of what was taken from us, what we have lost, what we did not receive and may never receive.

I walked out from his office into the greyness of the afternoon and watched leaves drop and swirl along the quiet street and I thought of words I once wrote in a poem:

I have buried the suffering of my skin beneath a tattoo of vines; a reminder of seasons change; that this too shall pass and grief will release from my body and collect wherever the leaves go in winter.

I still do not know where the leaves go in winter any more than I know what to do with this release of grief from my body. What does one do with all this sadness? What does one do on Mother's Day when there is only grief for the mother we lost, or who became lost to us, or that we never truly had to begin with?

And maybe there are no answers and maybe there will always be sadness and maybe Mother's Day will get easier and maybe it won't and maybe one day there will be forgiveness but for now there is only acceptance and maybe that's enough:

To acknowledge the life we have lost.

To know joy in the days we have made.

Happy Mother's Day wherever your heart lands today x