I have just spent a really difficult couple of days.
Easter was my mums favourite time of the year. As a child I can remember her making me the most beautiful Easter bonnets for our Easter parades.
She made it so special for us with her cake baking and amazing Easter roast dinner.
She loved daffodils and now I struggle to look at the ones in my garden.
Anyway to get back to the point how do you mark or even just cope with all the first times without.
I’ve already done mothers day and Easter without her ( she passed away 25/1/26) which I spent mostly sobbing and in a daze.
Her birthday is next month and then it’s mine. I’d like to try to make her birthday a celebration.
Thank you for reading
Also on an unrelated note does anyone else still text/call their passed parent. I have called and left her messages a few times. It makes me feel a little more connected to her
Much sympathy. I can relate to your pain in going through one thing after another for the first time without your mother. My beloved husband died on September 28, 2025 so I am going through a series of “firsts” without him: my birthday, our anniversary, Christmas, his birthday and now, Easter. I went to York overnight for my birthday (I stayed at the Bar Convent) and to a nearby arboretum (Thorpe Perrow ) for our anniversary. Both these things worked really well. In each instance, it was something away from home and completely different to any previous celebrations. Christmas was horrible. I gave a few presents and perhaps a dozen cards and went to church services but beyond that I was paralysed. An awful time. For his February birthday I bought flowers for him. Unlike Christmas which is culturally and emotionally very heavily laden for me, Easter is a deeply religious and spiritual time. I didn’t miss him. I attended a lot of services leading up to Easter. For the first time since he died, I was able to stop clinging to him emotionally. I felt that he really was gone. Where his spirit is and what it’s like, I have no idea but I sense that it is wonderful beyond imagining.
A new special time is coming up. I have his ashes with me, but next week, I am going with a friend to take them to Wensleydale to scatter them where he wanted. That will be the final parting with his mortal remains.
All this said, I still miss him and our life together and I always will. He was my soulmate and the part of me that could only exist in his presence is also gone. I talk to him a lot. He just can’t answer back. What is helping now, over 6 months from his death, is trying to take care of myself as well as I would for anyone else, to try to lovingly care for myself just as he did long ago when I needed it so badly. I often don’t succeed but I am trying.
In summary my own experience has shown me that doing something different to what we had ever done on those “special” days is helpful as well as pretending in extreme moments to be my own best friend. It is also to honour the special days in whatever feels right as I did in buying flowers for his birthday: I put them next to the box of ashes and sat there for a long time in silence and then in thanks for his life and our love for each other.
Again, all that said, who could have imagined how much one could cry?
So sorry for your loss @Delphs . Here are a few things to think about.
We often think that holding tightly to pain is loyalty; but true loyalty is how the loss has transformed us. Try to think of ways you can honour her life. How you can embody into your life the best of what she gave you. Did she teach you kindness? Then each act of compassion you show becomes a thread in her legacy. Did she taught you resilience? Then each challenge you overcome becomes a testament to her influence. You honour her life if you follow what she taught you.
It’s a little over a year since my mum passed away. Mum lived with us and I cared for her for just over four years. A part of me died right along with her and I mourn her loss every waking hour. I got through the first birthday, wedding anniversary, Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day etc., and the firsts are always extremely difficult and emotionally challenging. I text my Dad all the time and I write little messages and light candles for my mum on her MuchLoved memorial page. There is no right or wrong way to grieve and if texting/leaving voice mail brings you a degree of comfort, then keep doing so. I am so very sorry for your loss (this always feels lame when saying it), I know first hand how deep that grief cuts into you. I would look to celebrate her birthday and raise a glass in her memory. I wrote my mum a birthday card and put it next to her photo. I lit a candle and bought her some flowers, which I placed in a vase next to her picture. They never truly leave you and I like to think that my parents are watching over me.
You will never truly recover from the loss of a loved one and the grief that you feel. In time you will learn to live around it. I think the second year is somehow worse because most if not all the their affaires are in order and the void they leave in their wake together with the silence, is further compounded. Reach out to the community here as it has been a great source of comfort for many. Me included. XX
So sorry for your loss , I lost my mum at 18 (4 years ago) and relate to this post, I find comfort it pouring love into what she would have loved doing the things she would have done helps me feel close to her and stay connected, in the first two years I completely avoided anything like this Mother’s Day Christmas didn’t even want to go to the grave as it felt so unfair and sad to face I think it takes time try new things see how it makes you feel, you don’t need to do anything don’t feel social pressure to act remember grief is your own path find somthing that’s works for you.
The ‘firsts’ are definitely the worst but the anniversary ‘dates’ and Xmas/Easter etc can still hit you every year.
With regards to Easter/Xmas I try to treat them the same as any other day now, stick to my routine, don’t change mealtimes or the time of your daily walk etc, just treat them like a normal day.
It’s important to remember everyone grieves differently and if something works for YOU then thats Ok.
I’m so very sorry, I’m just about to head into the last of my firsts! Her first anniversary of going to reside in paradise!
I’ve struggled through and like you, just cried a lot but I’ve cried at the suspense of the ‘1st’ if that makes sense? Like Mother’s Day, I cried the Friday the whole day before the day on Sunday. I just tell myself that that’s okay because my body needed that release, that preparation and then on the day, no tears, just secret smiles and warm feeling of my lovely mum.
Sunday will be her 1 year anniversary and I’m going to the beach and diggin out a love heart part of the sand just before the tide comes in to place her in and to cover her over, I’ll then watch the tide come in and set her free. I know some keep ashes and some don’t agree but the whole point to this is, do what you feel is right and what you need. Try picture her at one of these celebrations when she was in a good place and draw on that energy. Sending you love xx
