The day I remember how lucky I was to have had you

It was always such a bittersweet day, Mother’s Day.

You never knew, of course, what day it was. Your busy little head full of other things. But kind, thoughtful friends and family always made sure the day was marked. A card with your signature scrawled across it, guided by an adult hand. A bunch of spring flowers beautifully tied, or perhaps my favourites, yellow fuscias, in their plastic wrapping.

They’d be put into your fist and you would be gently prodded in the back with an eager, excited “go on Thomas, give it to mum”. You would walk across to me and nearly drop them somewhere in the vicinity before turning your attention elsewhere. I would be effusive and so pleased but it always made me sad that you didn’t really care one way or the other.

In the early days, when it was just you and me, and my poor family didn’t quite know what to do, different people would drop in a card just to make sure I got one: “Thomas asked me to get you this,” they’d say. And then, of course there’d be the card from school that you’d “made yourself”: folded card, green crayon stems and leaves and yellow tissue paper for daffodil petals.

And I loved them and I treasure them. But each time it broke my heart because I wanted you to be able to do it all by yourself but you couldn’t... and you never would be able to. Special needs – such a simple phrase, but a phrase that doesn’t really explain anything at all, to those who don’t know. To have a child who never says “mum”.

I hope this isn’t making me seem ungrateful to the people who made the effort, for Mother’s Day, on your behalf but I know they understand that the day made me a bit down. And they were sad too, behind their smiles. Sad for me, for you, appreciating that Mother’s Day was difficult, different, not what it was supposed to be.

In truth though, every moment you cuddled in, every moment you giggled as I recited, off by heart, Room on the Broom, The Gruffalo, The Snail and the Whale, Bold Little Tiger, Chicken Licken (my, what a repertoire!), was worth more than all the Mother’s Day cards in the world to me.

Every time you said “please” in Makaton sign language when I asked you if you wanted a sing-song, every time you sniggered as I made a bash at My Grandfather’s Clock, Wouldn’t it Be Loverrrly and Moon River are moments so precious they were all the Mother’s Day presents I would ever need.

I still recite the stories, to make 
sure I don’t forget. I still sing the 
songs too.

Now you’re not here. And every Mother’s Day is an even more different kind of mother’s day. Am I still a mum?

So often I face “The Question”. It’s a question I dread, but I’m always braced for it – and I wait for it every time I’m introduced.“Do you have children?” people ask. And I breathe and smile and then I tell them. Smack ’em in the face with it, gently though. “I had a Thomas,” I say. “But he died...”

And I can see the horror in their eyes and how they want to back off, run away, take back the question, they flounder, they stammer and they genuinely don’t know what to do.

I try make it easy for them. I tell them it’s OK that I’m OK and that they must, please, not worry. But then they ask your age, they ask how you died and I feel so terribly guilty when I tell them you had “special needs”, as if that explained your departure.

I wish I didn’t have to because sometimes I see them almost relax as if I’ve suggested perhaps it’s not so bad. But I can’t deny you. I was your mum. I still am your mum. And I would shout your name from the rooftops every day if I could.

So on Mother’s Day, the day that caused me so much mixed-up stuff when you were alive, I remember, above all things, how lucky I was to have had you at all.