Chasing Dandelions

Becoming a mother without one.

Before I begin, I would like to alert you to the themes of grief and loss in this article. If you’d like to continue reading, then by all means, you are welcome here.

I became acutely aware from an early age that milestones would be accompanied by a bitter sweet taste. Significant birthdays, graduations, my wedding day, having my first child all come with a side of grief. It was the month before I turned 6 that I lost my mother, and it was a week and a day before my 6th birthday that I buried her. I remember my dad taking a Costco cake into school for my birthday that year and I remember appreciating that he was most probably making a big deal out of my birthday because mum had just passed. I had a party that I have no memory of but pictures showed me that it happened. Physical pictures that you can hold, the kind someone had to develop in a red room. Given that I have quite an astute long term memory, I imagine that this was one of those memories that grief stole from me.

When I was still very young, someone told me that if you pick a dandelion and blow on it, you can make a wish. When you’re young they also tell you that once you don’t tell anyone your wishes, they come true. Now I don’t know who they is, but they lied. Of course now I know that wishes are just an attempt of the enemy to deviate us from God, because who or what are we wishing to? Anyway, moving swiftly on, for years after, I would pick dandelions, blow them and wish that my mum would come back. Deep down I knew it would not work because I understood that she was with God now. My dad explained that to me the day I gave my life to Christ in her cemetery, also at 5/6. But when you want something badly, you try things just in case.

So in February 2021 when I found out I was pregnant. Well, my guitar teacher Zandy saw me yawn over zoom and said “Am I boring you?” To which I laughed and replied “no I’ve just been feeling really tired lately.” Then she said those words I will never forget, “you sure you’re not pregnant?” I froze because I had not considered that to be a possibility, my period was due that day so I just thought it was that. At the very end of our lesson she said, “let me know if you’re pregnant!” She was funny, I miss her. It never came, so three days later on the Friday, my husband drove me to get a test and low and behold it was positive. It was one of the happiest days of my life. Now writing this I just realised that I found out I was going to be a mother in the same month I had lost my own mother 22 years prior. God is so intentional.

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” Psalm 147:3 ESV

I was determined that I would not let grief or anything steal the joy of being pregnant for the first time. After the first scan, I chose to keep the mindset that my mum knew that I was pregnant before anyone else, her having a birds eye view and all. Truthfully, I am not actually sure that it works like that but it provides a source of comfort, so technicalities matter not. The first week of my son’s life was when it really sank in that the one person I wanted to visit, could not, which made it even more difficult to accept the ones that did. As well intended as people may be, no one can replace my mum. She would have just known what to do and what I needed because that is what mums do.

Another layer of healing came for me on mothers day which I had spent years not being able to celebrate due to the passing of my mum and my aunty (who deserves her own article.) For the first time, there was no bitter sweet taste that accompanied mothers day. There was simply gratitude and joy that God chose me, the least likely, to bring forth a child. I still have moments when I long for my mother and wonder what it would be like for my children to grow up with their Grandma Grace. To have that kind of intuitive support and unconditional love as an adult but I spend more time in awe of the woman she was. A woman who in just shy of 6 years prepared me for life inexplicably. I still use lessons from her to this day, I still quote her and notice parts of myself and my mothering that come directly from her.

Although, sometimes I think I shouldn’t still have moments of sadness given that I have spent 26 years without her. I then think about what I would tell someone who had experienced loss at an early age. I would tell them that grief doesn’t have a specific time limit and it does not just get better with time but you learn to cope and focus on the blessing that person was in your life, more than you dwell on the void their passing created. On those days when it becomes overwhelming, I would say:

“Come to me, all of you who are struggling and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28 CJB