Surviving Mother's Day as an Adult Orphan
Ideas for honoring moms who are no longer living. Mother's Day Series, part 1 of 4
I first heard the term “adult orphan” in 2017 when I was in a dance production with Offleash Area Performance Group. Those of us in the show were dancers and/or performance artists who had lost one or both parents as an adult.
Losing parents, at any age, is difficult. You hear a lot about orphan children, but there’s not much talk about what happens when you’re an adult.
If I could describe it in one word it would be “unmoored.”
In this article, Grief Counselor Dr. Alejandra Vasquez states:
Losing both parents close together can feel as if you’re navigating a ship through unchartered territory. You’ll start to question your identity and develop a heightened sense of your mortality.
In the dance production that I was in, we performed a set of modern dance pieces based on the themes of grief and loss as well as the concept of time - past, present and future - represented by circular patterns and movements. My director/dance colleague, Jennifer Ilse, extended the adult orphan term to include not only a person’s birth parents, but also adoptive parents, step parents, or an estranged parent who left the family:
"Each performer's story is both specific and universal. It may be about the death of a person's birth parents or adoptive parents, or it could be that a parent left and is no longer in the picture. It's that place where a person feels cast out into the world and on their own."
I was forty when my mom died, and my dad died three years after that. I could say that I enjoyed all those wonderful years with my parents, and since I was the youngest of my large family, (I have four brothers and seven sisters) I probably got to know my parents better than some of my other siblings did, but it still wasn’t enough.
After my parents died I was grasping for a metaphor—I felt like a piece of pie with the upper crust removed - very vulnerable; or how about a tree with the higher, protective branches taken away? And you know what’s really unnerving? When you and your siblings spend the day cleaning up your parents’ house, getting it ready to be put on the market. The dumpster sits out front and you’re tossing things into it - musty hardcover books that lined the shelves of your childhood living room; piles of blankets you used to snuggle under during TV night; vinyl couch cushions that would stick to the back of your legs on warm summer evenings. Later, the dumpster is sealed, and this huge box gets hoisted and hauled away. If you’re following the pie metaphor, now your bottom crust is gone; and if you’re a tree, there goes your roots. So, you exist either as a floating pile of fruit filling or a rootless tree trunk that could get blown over by a gust of wind.
For stability, all you can do is trust God.
There’s this myth that people have — a glorified concept of a large family - that you’re all close-knit and that you’re “one big happy.” Actually, it was chaos, although, as a kid, I didn’t know it at the time. My parents didn’t get an instruction manual for raising a large family in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s. They were trying to figure it out. As kids, we grew up during those years and in our own ways, we were all trying to figure it out—how to manage our own lives, how to navigate social situations, how to make informed decisions, how to deal with our emotions, especially during puberty. I can readily say that I was loved, cared for, and my basic needs were provided, but my mom didn't have time for long, quality conversations with each child. At the dinner table, my dad would sometimes ask, “Did you have any fun today?” but other than that, small everyday details of life took a back seat for larger, more urgent priorities. No one knew if I got a score of 100 on my spelling test or if one of the boys at school made fun of me because of my buck teeth. For my mom, each day at home being a mom and a wife was a matter of survival and it was marked with frazzled concern for her children as she faced the next crisis of the moment.
I never thought Mother’s Day would be as hard as it has been. When my mom was still around, we used to stop in at my parents’ house for that Sunday afternoon. We’d bring gifts, flowers, cards and green plants. Sometimes we’d gather for dinner at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
I really don’t like talking about my grief during Mother’s Day because motherhood needs to be celebrated. It’s such an amazing thing—how moms care for those little ones, make sacrifices and provide love and special days. Because I don’t have children of my own, I’m unable to experience the profundity of it all, but I do know this: That moms need to be honored. I don’t want to tarnish the day with my sorrow, but sometimes it needs to be talked about.
So, what do you do (or not do) when your mom is no longer living and the rest of the world is off celebrating the day with their mothers and/or their children?
Over the years I’ve collected some simple things to do to honor and remember my mom.
Post a tribute to your mom on social media. If you’re on Facebook or Instagram, you can put up a photo along with a special memory of her. Sometimes I’ve used the day to create a special blog or video. (I will share these in my upcoming posts.)
By the way, while you’re posting on social media, try to avoid scrolling and reading other people’s posts. It’s just too hard to read about the picnics, the gatherings, the hugs, the gifts and all the reminders of what you no longer have.
Focus on something she used to do. If your mom liked gardening, plant a flower or a container of mixed herbs. Did your mom like to cook or bake? Try out one of her favorite recipes. My mom used to make bread cube stuffing. She based in on a Betty Crocker recipe but made it into a meal by adding ground pork, pecans, raisins, chestnuts and several other ingredients. (Let me know if you’d like the recipe, and I’ll send it to you!)
Look through old photo albums. Find pictures of special times you spent with your mom. I actually have very few photos of my mom and I together. We didn’t always have a camera available, and if we did, I was the one usually taking the photos.
Here’s one that I found. I’m in seventh or eighth grade and this was a trip to Dubuque, Iowa that I took with my parents. My mom and I are sitting near a fountain in the center of town.
Write a poem or re-write an old one from the past. I once made a card for my mom with a rhyming poem that thanked her for making my daily “scrunches.” (A “scrunch” would begin in the morning as a bag lunch with a sandwich and a piece of fruit. If I happened to drop my backpack too hard onto the floor, my text books would slam into the fruit, the sandwich would wrap itself around the fruit, and thus, the lunch would become a scrunch.)
Write a letter on a piece of stationary or in your journal. Relationships with your mom can be complicated. There might be things you didn’t get the chance to say to her before she passed or issues that never got sorted out. Writing things out can be cathartic - a way to express how you really felt about something or to finally explain the choices you made that she might not have understood. No one has to see it. You can destroy the letter or pages after you finish it or keep your sentiments tucked away in the privacy of your journal for later reference. I remember writing a journal entry to my mom explaining to her why I didn’t continue dating or marry the guys that she thought I should be with. She only saw their good looks and outward behaviors and not the way they actually treated me.
Wear something that used to belong to her. It could be a piece of jewelry, a scarf, or a sweater. I have my mom’s set of abalone earrings and necklace that I always wear to remember her.
Use an object she gave you as a gift. Drink tea from a mug she gave you. Read that book that was a birthday present. Hang up the Christmas ornament she gave you years ago. I inherited a gold Christmas bell that plays a tinny musical box version of Silent Night. It reminds me of all the decorations and details she did around the holidays to make it special for us kids.
Re-read old Christmas or birthday cards - remembering the words she used to say. I still have a card that she gave me when I was in my “ragged twenties” and struggling with finding a job. The card says “I’m here if you need me.” I’ve also listened to some of the audio recordings of my mom that I had converted from my dad’s old reel-to-reel tapes.
Release something in her honor. Send a balloon into the sky with a prayer. Float a note made into a paper boat down the waters of a nearby creek or lake.
Last year my friend had a brilliant idea. She held a Mom’s Day tea party and invited all of us who no longer had moms. We brought pictures of our moms and told our stories. We shared finger sandwiches, chocolate dipped strawberries, scones and a variety of teas. My friend will be holding another tea party like that again this year.
Comfort those who grieve. Whenever I know I’m going to be in a place where Mother’s Day is going to be a big thing, I try to position myself next to someone who recently lost their mother, because I know… when the moment comes that all the moms are asked to stand up and be acknowledged, the person who is still grieving might get blindsided. I grab their hand and hold it, just to show them that I understand.
Do something totally different, but expect that you may still experience grief. A year after my parents were gone I had the opportunity to go on a music and dance mission trip to Trinidad. My team was performing at Tabernacle of Prayer, our host church in Port of Spain. It was a very upbeat and charismatic worship time, and I was blessed to see the older men, the leaders of the church, raising their hands, singing loudly and dancing to the music. It was Mother’s Day, and at one point I felt sorrow because I missed my mom. A woman wearing a pink knitted hat sat behind me, wailing loudly during the prayer time. I didn’t know why she was crying, but I felt a bond with her. Maybe she was also grieving the loss of her mom, or maybe even the loss of a child. At one point I put my arm around her and we cried together. And then after a bit, we both calmed down. I don’t think I’ve ever grieved that hard. It was a blessing because I felt a great release and sense of healing from that experience.
Look to the future. Because I’m one of those who believe in heaven, I believe that I’ll one day see my mom again and have all of eternity to catch up on the things we never talked about. I can’t wait to tell her about the trips I took, how I used some of her survival tactics to get through Covid, and how I thought of them when I received my graduate degree.
How about you? Please share your ideas for honoring Mom on Mother’s Day, especially if your mom is no longer living.
Here are some additional resources:
How to Survive Mother’s Day Without Your Mother, by Charlotte Hilton Andersen, Reader’s Digest
From Jessica Smock at Midstory Magazine:
I am not a child of tragedy, weeping in my bonnet, abandoned on a prairie. I am a married, middle-aged mom of two kids, with a suburban house, a mortgage, a messy SUV, pets, deadlines, appointments, and an acute case of perimenopause. But I still felt a sense of orphanage, of vulnerability and perilousness and ineffable loss.
Hi, Carol,
Thanks for writing about Mom. You posted a picture of her at her one her most beautiful moments. As a daughter at "the top of the heap", I often felt as if I had been elected to be an assistant mom, especially as the laundry assistant after Kate & Eileen were born. We were kind of a team caring for the younger children. When you came, though I was graduating that spring from high school. Mom had not had a baby in six years. She insisted on caring for you all by herself. Even though I had fed & diapered my siblings from Lorsie through Kate & Eileen. I believe mom fed & cared for you single handedly. I remember holding week old Lorsie on my lap next to Dad who was driving home with her from the hospital. She had stayed there until all the rest of us finished having the red measles.
Thank you, Carol, for such a beautifully shared and well-crafted piece of art and reflection. I loved your suggestions on how to navigate and honor the day, and this line will stay with me: “I felt like a piece of pie with the upper crust removed…” ♥️ sending you grace as you navigate, unearth, grieve and love.