A motherless Mother's Day

My first without my mum. My first as a mum.

I want to show my mother what I made. Don't we always? It is the same urge I have had since primary school, pulling crumpled drawings from my bookbag, desperate for her praise, for a coveted spot on the fridge.

Look what I did mum. Look what I made. Only this time I made a human baby. And I need her to see him. I need her to look at his ridiculous blonde curls, the almond eyes a miraculous shade of blue, the ski slope of a nose that is entirely hers, and mine, but hers first.

He is hers as much as he is mine. And she is not here to witness him. But more than that, I need her to witness me, doing it. Look mum – I'm doing it. I'm doing it!

She ran to me in those early, blurred days of chaos. My first week as a mother when time and space lost all meaning and I sat on the bed, drenched in milk, delirious from exhaustion, dazed from the brutal crash-landing into a new life.

I saw her, marching at full speed past the window, a flash of pink dress, and then she was with me on the bed, watching carefully as I struggled with breastfeeding, encouraging me to rest, to sleep, warily and gently navigating my postpartum mood swings.

Days out of hospital herself, no business being out of bed, she had booked a train from Manchester to London at 2am and eight hours later she was by my side. She wanted to hold her first grandchild, yes, but she was there for me. Her baby.

Three months later, she would be gone.

We rinsed everything we could out of those weeks. The shortest of crossovers, in which both she and I existed in the world as mothers. I strapped my newborn to my chest and travelled to see her as often as I could. We stayed with her for days at a time, so she could bathe him, sing to him at bedtime, cuddle him in the mornings when he was still soft and rumpled from sleep.

She got to be his Nana. She pushed his buggy to the park, learnt his favourite songs, played his favourite games, saw his first smiles. And then it was over.

They had three months together. I am so grateful we had three months. And I am absolutely furious that we had three months.

My baby is growing so fast. The fog of postpartum is lifting. I am so happy and brimming with a love that borders on obsession. And I'm exhausted. And I'm overwhelmed. And everything makes me cry. Is this how you felt about me, mum? I want to ask her. This much love? This wild, wild love? Was it this hard and this beautiful for you too?

I want to tell her that I see her now. I see all of her, and all that she did. I want to tell her that my son looks just like her. That nose. Those eyes. I want to tell her that I get it now. I want to say sorry. I want to say thank you.

The day after she died, Rafe laughed for the first time. He is a kind soul and he knew we needed it. That sweet chuckle, the most perfect sound. And my mother would never hear it.

Bittersweet. That's what they tell me it will always be like now. Mother's Day – my first as a mother, without my mother – is bittersweet. What a pretty word for something so crushing. As though these moments will feel like a tart sip of artisanal lemonade, not like you're being destroyed and reborn in the same instant.