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May holidays

Mother’s Day is a special day this year.

The more I embrace my own shadow side, the more I can fully see that of my parents — including my mother’s. With the help of therapy, I’ve been learning to set healthy boundaries with this side, gradually understanding and embracing it.

By recognizing it as just one part of who they are, and understanding it as a piece of the whole, I also make room to see their beautiful sides. Seeing them in their entirety gives me a chance to love them unconditionally. I’m starting to notice more and more of the light in them again, which makes it easier to miss them.

There aren’t many defense mechanisms left between me and what I’ve long tried to avoid: making space for grief in my life. I didn’t realize how afraid I was to grieve.

Looking back at the moments of their passing and the time since, I see how much I’ve pushed away. Even before they passed, the grief had quietly started. And after, I see now how much of it I tried to carry alone, silently.

As I began forgiving myself — and them — and seeing their beauty again, I also realized how much I miss them, and how deeply I love them. I think this is what was meant by “schone pijn” — I remember the term from therapy and wonder if this is what it referred to.

Through this long journey, beyond my fear of grieving and the defenses that kept me distanced from deeper connections, I can now admit my need to grieve.

And over time, I’ve noticed how many others share in this experience. Recognizing my need for space to grieve has shown me how much I also need support in contextualizing this experience. That will hopefully make carrying this grief a little lighter — and help me take another beautiful step.

Mother’s Day, I’ll give myself the kind of gifts I once wished I could give my mother. I offer them to myself — not because I’m a mother 24/7, but because, through caring for myself and others, I’ve grown into some motherly qualities of my own.

And by embracing my parents fully and loving them unconditionally, with awareness of my wounds and scars, I’ve chosen to cultivate motherly love — as if, in my mind, I’m holding them close and gently reassuring them they were, and still are, deeply loved by me.

Mother’s Day is another moment to embrace the parts of my mother in me that continue to shape who I am becoming.