International Bereaved Mother’s Day 2014

I had never heard of International Bereaved Mother’s Day before I lost my daughter, but now I want the world to know about this beautiful day to celebrate ALL mothers… even those whose children cannot be seen.

We are still mothers.

I love to quote one of our contributors, Sheila, more commonly known as Mary Tyler Mom. After losing their four year old Donna to cancer, she and her husband began the nonprofit Donna’s Good Things to raise money for pediatric cancer research and to support other families with a child with cancer.

When talking about why she does all that she does, she explained that this was her way of “mothering Donna.” Although she can no longer hold or kiss her sweet daughter, she can still mother her by helping others in her name.

That’s why I do what I do too. I want to keep Kathryn alive. I want to do more because she lived. I want to have a positive impact on the world… because that’s the way I mother my daughter in heaven.

Today is International Bereaved Mother’s Day 2014.

We have done a lot to be proud of in the last few months… to bring awareness to grieving mothers and to do our part in supporting them as Mother’s Day approaches. I will have an entire post about all of that sometime this week. But for today, on international bereaved mother’s day 2014, I just wanted to ask everyone to stop for a second, hug their children, and think about all the mamas who are missing theirs.

International Bereaved Mother’s Day is a day to honor the mother’s who are not able to celebrate with their child, but still deserve to be honored.

I am no longer actively grieving but I will always be bereaved… and this is a day that I can stop and reflect on my journey, where it began and where I am today. I have come a long way in the last two and a half years. And I have to say that so much of it is from the support that I have received from the other bereaved mothers who have become close friends. Women who were just strangers to me three years ago have now become the pillar on which I lean.

You are a beautiful mother too.

For more about International Bereaved Mothers Day 2014, please be sure to visit the CarlyMarie Project.