"To my mum who won't be here on Mother's Day."

A Mother’s Day letter to the mum that’s not here.

Mother’s Day is just around the corner. I know because I see the ads on television. I know because I see the cards appear in the shops. I know because I can’t stop thinking about you.

As is always the case with Mother’s Day I don’t quite know where to find myself. I’m a mother to three beautiful children now who I adore (do you even know that?). I’d love to spend the day totally wrapped up in them, enjoying their smiles and laughter, knowing and appreciating how truly lucky I am. But there is always something that stops me from fully being in that moment.

It’s because I’m also a motherless mother, a daughter of someone no longer here, a best friend missing the other and on Mother’s day especially, I am reminded so clearly of it sitting among the love I have for my own children.

It’s been almost eight years since you died, Mum and I was always told that time would heal these wounds; that one day it wouldn’t hurt. More and more I’m realising though that there is no end to grief, just a change in how I move it around my life.

Day to day I’m okay, I’m good. I’m happy, I’m healthy and I love life. It’s the way you would have wanted me to live. I have an amazing husband, three beautiful children, a great job and wonderful friends. As so many people going through similar things would know though special days have a way of taking you back.

Jacqui with her daughter, Isla (SUPPLIED)

As Mother’s Day approaches I find myself going to that place deep inside where I seldom allow my mind to go. A place where I close my eyes and try to see your face. A place where I am overcome by sadness and self criticism when I can’t focus properly on your features like I once could.

I go to a place where I sit paralysed by the fear that one day, maybe soon, I won’t be able to remember you. I try and go to that place to hear your voice. I’m fearful that sometimes it’s not there when I so desperately need to hear it and then at other times, when I least expect it, it’s as clear as the day we last spoke. When I needed you I used to call your old phone number and hope that after all this time your voicemail message was still there. I sat in silence, shocked by reality on the day it wasn't.

When times are really bad I reach for the few personal items I have of yours. I never would have guessed that a dressing gown could mean so much but here I am holding it amongst my most treasured possessions. It’s because it smells like you. Still, if only ever so slightly, it smells like you.

On the rare occasion I allow myself to hold it to my face and breathe you in, the pain floods every vein in my body and I quickly shove it back to the furthermost corner of my closet to sit, as my secret safety blanket for the next time I need to pretend you're not so far away. My heart will tear a little more the day I reach for it and realise that time, as it does, has dulled that musty lingering memory of you too.

Jacqui with her eldest son. Image: Supplied

Around Mother's Day you are so close to my mind. On the day itself I’ll steal a few private moments to cry for you, to smile for you, and to try and feel your presence as I always do. I try and remember everything that made you, you. Your laugh, your smile, the way you were strong, yet loving. I have flashbacks of the last times we were together, before the world fell apart. It’s a bizarre cocktail of fuzzy warm memories shaken with anguish, loss and missing you.

Without even being here you make me reflect on myself. Would you know the me I am now? Would you be proud to say I was your daughter? With every ounce of my being I hope that’s true because my one and only moral compass is still you. When I think about the kind of mother I wish I could be I realise that everything I hope to emulate was in you.

I wish my babies knew you. Talking about you and trying to fill the void isn’t the same. You would have adored them and they, you but it wasn’t to be. Often I wonder if you sent them to me to patch up my heart that was so damaged when you left. A love to course through my veins which is different to what I felt for you but yet has some similarities. Something to numb myself from the constant realisation that you’re not here and never will be again but yet to remind me that there is purpose in life. That despite what has happened there is always happiness to be had and love to be shared.

As I sit writing you a letter that you will never see my eyes are clouded by the tears which make their way down my cheeks. I am not the only motherless daughter out there but yet it can be such a lonely place.

If I could tell you anything mum it would be this: thank you. Thank you for all that you were to me, for all that you did. Thank you for being my best friend and showing me what love and friendship really is. The hurt I feel now doesn’t compare to the love I’ll always feel for you.

Happy Mothers Day mum, wherever you are.

Leave your message to your mum in the comments below.