Mothering Without Being a Mother

Love and Absence

Here in the U.S. it is almost Mother’s Day—a holiday that inspires a complicated mixture of love and disquiet in me. The love is easy: I have an amazing mother and a delightful stepmother. Then there is the joy of celebrating the day with my ten-year-old daughter, who has hinted that I have a sweet treat in my future!

But the disquiet—well, I cannot help but be conscious of certain absences on Mother’s Day, especially the absence of those mother figures I have lost, ...