I met Michelle Hohn on June 11, 2016, almost 1 year after moving from Toronto to Vancouver. She is the founder of a peer support group, called Wildflower, for women who have lost their mothers before age 21. Under the leadership and guidance of Michelle, this group has enriched my life in so many ways but most importantly, allowed me to heal from a traumatic event so long ago. She is an amazing writer with a brilliant mind and I’m so grateful to call her my friend. She shared this piece with me and I’d like to share it with you, perhaps it resonates……
by Michelle Hohn
February 16, 2016
I get it. I’ve been there too. Single on Valentine’s Day.
The dreaded six-week lead-in of television and radio ads, touting the jewelled representation of the precious and irreplaceable love in your life. Blech. And of course there is the looming weight of the actual day, particularly if it falls on a Friday or Saturday night, when you fluctuate somewhere between denial and intentional ‘I don’t need V-Day plans’ plans with the girls. Then there is the pressure if you are actually in a relationship (especially a new one) – on men in particular – to flower and candy a girl up. It’s all a bit much.
But, for those who are so inspired, finding a sweetheart or a soul mate (or tracking down a rockin’ one night stand for that specific day) is hypothetically attainable. No, we know, being in a relationship doesn’t define you. And maybe you are happy single, and plan to continue to be happy without a ‘plus one’ for the foreseeable future and that is totally cool. But if it is important to you, finding someone to share life’s adventures with is at least within the realm of possibility.
Not so for a parallel situation – for those who have experienced mother loss on Mother’s Day. I can’t just ‘put myself out there more’ or build an online profile that will attract me a new Mom – and yet Mother’s Day prevails. As motherless daughters, we must endure the same over-commercialization of the celebration of that special someone in our life that we just don’t have.
Would it be even remotely appropriate to suggest that everyone who does have a Mom is eye-rollingly pathetic and should stop celebrating her – full stop? I don’t think so.
There is new-age concern about the psychological effects and related pressures of Valentine’s Day on children. Again by way of comparison, as a child in sixth grade whose mother had just died, no one was terribly fussed about the fact that I had to hide my tears that made small splash marks on the glue and construction paper during art class while we created hand- made Mother’s Day cards for this oh-so-important day.
I lost my Mom to breast cancer when I was eleven years old, which translates over time into thirty-five years of varying degrees of avoidance, rage, depression, melancholy, or – if I’m lucky – a neutral day in the ‘coming to terms with untimely demise’ category. Mother’s Day advertising is as pervasive and relentless as Valentine’s Day – from the Open Hearts collection to surprise celebrity home renovations for Ma. Then there are the reams of pink and purple cards, which declare in elegant fonts how important a mother is in a girl or a woman’s life and how it would just not be the same without her.
No kidding.
So every May, I quietly opt-out: I turn the station, I click the X on the pop-up ads, I walk past the card and flower displays, I keep myself ‘otherwise occupied’ on Mother’s Day, yet I have never ranted or resented anyone else for having a mom, or having Mother’s Day plans, or judged those who go for those really extravagant or fun gestures to show love and appreciation for that important person in your life. Despite my personal life experience, I’m happy for y’all.
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Over these same years, I have chosen Valentine’s Day as a special day to represent any true love in my life. Until their passing, it was my maternal grandparents – we lived in different cities, but they received a card, Pot-o-Gold chocolates (their favourite) and a phone call on that day every year without fail. For the past ten years I have had an actual honey – whom I adore, and guess what? We enjoy celebrating our lives together. We loathe wanton or conspicuous consumption as much as the next critically-thinking person, and we truly believe that showing our love and gratitude for each other should not be limited to one day in the calendar year – but we still take Hallmark up on the opportunity. Why not? It was a big deal to find each other and to shake loose all the emotional baggage that people carry around these days to get to a place of unconditional love and comfort and the corresponding celebration. My guy is my ‘safe place’- after a very extended period of time when I had no safe place. And because we all know a good percentage of relationships do not last forever, it truly makes each milestone even more worth celebrating [insert big, red, schmoopy-poopy hearts here].
So to all of you who would like to denounce or downright cancel Valentine’s Day, I offer this: Let us honour our sweethearts – no matter who they are, lovers, grandparents, friends, or that special teacher. No one is canvassing to cancel the Easter bunny or the drinking of green beer even if we personally do not partake. For those of us who have experienced loss of any kind – maybe, just maybe – Valentine’s Day is a symbolic way to embrace the love that we do have, and heal certain holes in our heart that have nothing to do with the current search (or not) for a life mate, over-spending, or whether school kids might feel impacted by the ‘popularity contest’ aspect of it all.
If you simply cannot stand yet another Valentine’s Day or what it is doing to the psyche of young minds or the state of our social fabric, maybe take pause to think about Motherless Daughters on Mother’s Day (or Fatherless Sons on Father’s Day for that matter), and just do what we do. Change the station. Click the X on the pop-up ads. Be happy for others and quietly opt out.
Michelle Hohn resides on Vancouver Island, BC and is the founder/organizer of Wildflower – a chapter of the international Motherless Daughters network and peer support group for women who experienced early mother loss.
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