After Unimaginable Loss, She Chose Motherhood Again
Mother’s Day used to feel predictable. There were cards and phone calls. Plans and traditions. A rhythm I understood, even when life itself felt complicated.
Now, the day lands differently. It’s quieter in some places. Fuller in others. And every year, it asks something new of me.
I should be helping my daughter get ready for junior prom.
We’d be in the middle of that familiar back-and-forth—the dress, the shoes, how late is too late. I’d be offering guidance she didn’t ask for. She’d be pretending not to need it.
And somewhere in there, we’d both be enjoying it more than we’d admit.
That’s what this season was supposed to look like.
Instead, this Mother’s Day, I’ll be chasing my 18-month-old son around the house, negotiating over nap time, and trying to convince him to take one more bite of broccoli. Some days I still pause and take that in. This life—this version of motherhood at 55—is not what I expected. And somehow, it’s still mine.
There’s a particular kind of tired that comes with having a baby in your 50s. The kind that settles into your bones. I feel it in the early mornings, in the middle-of-the-night wakeups, in the quiet moments when I sit down and realize I may not get back up for a while. But there’s something else there too. A patience that feels hard-earned. The small things don’t shake me the same way. The mess, the noise, the unpredictability—it all feels different now. Like I understand something I didn’t before. How beautifully and terrifyingly fragile life can be.
By 24, I had already said goodbye to my mother and my grandmother within weeks of each other. Mother’s Day became something else after that. A day that held memory more than celebration. A day where love didn’t disappear—but it didn’t have anywhere to land in the same way. Years later, I became a mother myself. And for a while, the day found its rhythm again.
Until it didn’t.
My daughter, Gabrielle, was tragically murdered by her father when she was just 7 years old, and it changed everything about how I experience this day. There isn’t a simple way to talk about that. What I can say is that it rearranges you. It changes how you move through the world. It changes what you notice. What you hold onto.
So no, I didn’t assume this was possible. Another Mother’s Day with a baby in my arms. Not at 55. Not after everything. But life has a way of continuing, even when you don’t know how it will.
My son is 18 months old. He is busy. Curious. Completely committed to doing things his own way. He throws food like a post-dinner mic drop. He laughs in a way that fills the entire room. And every now and then, he looks at me and smiles—and my heart feels heaviness and heaven at the same time.
Because I know that smile.
It’s not something I try to explain too much. It’s a feeling more than anything. A flicker. A recognition. A reminder of how love moves.
Raising a baby boy feels different in ways I didn’t expect. There’s a softness to him. A kind of openness. And also, a wildness—a physicality that keeps me on my toes. I find myself noticing the differences, the little things. How he moves. How he expresses himself. And at the same time, so much of it feels familiar. The rhythms of caring for a child don’t disappear. They wait for you.
Starting over at this stage of life comes with its moments. At 55, I am relearning things I thought I had long since mastered. I am back in conversations about snacks and naps and schedules. There are days when I wonder how I got here. And then there are days when I don’t wonder at all. I’m just in it—laughing, cleaning up, showing up again.
There are four generations living under my roof right now.
I’m Gen X. My husband, Axel, is Gen Y. Our au pair is Gen Z. And my son is Alpha.
On any given day, I can be talking toddler snacks, college plans, and retirement—sometimes all before lunch. It’s a little disorienting. And also, kind of amazing.
There are quiet moments too. Moments when I feel the space of what isn’t here. The life that would have been. The milestones I once imagined. Those don’t disappear just because new life has arrived. They live alongside everything else.
This is the part no one really teaches you: How to carry more than one truth at a time. How to move forward without leaving anything behind. Over time, I’ve come to understand resilience a little differently. It’s less about pushing through and more about making room.
Making room for what was.
Making room for what is.
And staying open to what might still come. Love, grief, gratitude, absence—all sitting at the same table, each one refusing to leave.
This year, Mother’s Day will not look the way I once imagined it would. There will be no prom pictures. But there will be a little boy at my table, figuring out how to hold a spoon. There will be laughter. And noise. And moments that feel small and significant at the same time.
There will be memory too. Always memory.
I have been mothered. I have mothered. And I am still here, still learning what that means. I have stopped trying to make sense of how it all fits together. I just let it be what it is. A life that holds loss and love in equal measure. A heart that remembers and still responds to joy.
And this Mother’s Day, that feels like enough. Enough to hold what was. Enough to stay open to what is.
Please note that we may receive affiliate commissions from the sales of linked products.
