A poem about Mother’s Day

I woke this morning, knowing what I’d see on social media.

The usual images of ‘Mother’s Day’ that make me feel guilty and inadequate as both parent and daughter.

My son is autistic and has behavioural problems and as such, struggles with ‘Mothering Sunday’ and so we don’t celebrate it. The mere mention triggers him.

I have now gone out the day alone, to alleviate tension around it.

But, before I left the house, we had a cuddle and a chat.

Not everyone gets to do that, do they?

I phoned my own mother, who lives too far for me to visit for the day. Our relationship is not a particularly close one but I love her very much and appreciate all she has done for me - chiefly being a source of stability, a rock - which means everything when growing up.

I wanted to write a poem for those like myself whose ‘Mother’s Day’ doesn’t look like those pictures on social media. And as I reflected upon that, I wondered if anybody’s truly does. Even those people who put the posts up.

Treasure what you have, no matter how battered, bruised or threadbare that may be.

With anyone you care for or love.

Not just your mother or offspring

Mother’s Day

You scroll through pics of blackened toast

A first attempt, ‘breakfast in bed’

Of chocolates and Sunday roasts

The clouds of fluffed angelic heads

.

The cards that hold those treasured words

As ‘proof’ in coloured misspelt scrawl

It starts off large then doesn’t fit

Squashed down to nothing much at all

.

And as you see these feeds on here

Thinking, “this is not my life”

Remember, it’s not really theirs

It’s just a slim constructed slice

.

They have their struggles going on

The people they have loved and lost

‘Black sheep’, a narcissistic one

Those who upped and left the nest

.

The paperwork and daily grind

Caring responsibilities

The illnesses, additional needs

The job losses and cruel disease

.

The alcohol and drug problems

Careers that died a sudden death

The red letters about arrears

Collectors knocking for their debt

.

The gamblers, abusing liars

Those who ignore them in the street

The children born who could not stay

And those they never got to meet

.

On Mother’s Day, if you don’t feel

Emotions you believe you ‘should’

Remember Facebook isn’t real

Those photos serve to highlight ‘good’

.

Their flowers crowd as gaudy Aunts

In vases fat as circus tents

The slender rose, the spray of white

The sprig of foliage no-one ‘gets’

.

Yet mundane stuff props up all the rest

Scaffolds withering chrysants

And as each bloom fades past its best

A nursery grows another plant

.

You did not fail, there is no trial

Go forward with your grief and strife

You have a rich segmented wheel

There’s hope and love, where there is life