Mamas of all kinds deserve a day to be recognized and (hopefully!) pampered. But what if all you feel like doing on Mother’s Day is crawling into a hole and ignoring the outside world because you’ve lost someone? Maybe you’ve experienced the loss of your mother or mother figure, maybe you’ve suffered pregnancy, infant, or neonatal loss. Perhaps you’ve lost a child, young or adult. Maybe you haven’t yet conceived and are struggling to become a mother. If you can relate to any or all of these, I hear you. I am here for you. I am holding space for you. I too grieve on Mother’s Day.

At 26, I lost my mom to stage IV colon cancer. She was only 47. (I wrote an essay for Mrs. Nipple on that here). The idea of my first Mother’s Day without her made me want to crawl into my room and not come out until Monday. While that would have been a-okay, a friend of mine who had lost her dad knew what to do for me. She made a plan with me and kept...