Grief in motherhood

Posted: Apr 23, 2026 09:38:35

There are moments in motherhood that feel so full, so loud with love… and somehow, so quietly heavy at the same time. The other day, I was standing in the kitchen, one baby at my feet, the other asking for a snack I had just handed them two minutes before. The usual rhythm of our day. And out of nowhere, I thought of my grandma. The way she used to move around a home, how everything felt warm and steady when she was in it. And just like that, I missed her in a way that felt almost physical. Grief looks different now. It doesn’t come in long stretches of silence the way I imagined it might. Instead, it sneaks into the in-between moments. While I’m folding tiny laundry. While I’m wiping sticky hands. While I’m watching my kids do something I know she would have loved to see. There isn’t really space to fall apart the way you might expect when you lose someone you love this much. Because little voices still call for you. Diapers still need changing. Dinner still needs to be made. So you learn quietly, and slowly how to carry it. Some days that means smiling and showing up fully. Other days it means doing the bare minimum with a lump in your throat and hoping no one notices. And sometimes, if I’m being honest, there’s guilt woven into it all. Guilt for being distracted. Guilt for feeling sad in the middle of such a beautiful season of life. Guilt for wishing, just for a second, that I could pause everything and just miss her. Because I do miss her. I miss the way she loved my babies. I miss the way she would have understood this season of life without me having to explain it. I miss knowing she was there. And more than anything, I miss the feeling of being someone’s granddaughter… while I’m so busy being “mom.” But she still shows up, in small ways. In the meals I make without thinking, because it’s how she used to do it. In the way I comfort my kids. In the quiet habits I didn’t realize I learned from her until now. She’s woven into the way I mother, whether I notice it or not. I think that’s the strange, tender thing about grief in this season... It doesn’t ask you to choose between joy and sadness. They exist together. In the same room. In the same moment. In the same heart. So I’m learning to hold both. To laugh with my kids while missing her. To build a life she would be proud of, even without her here to see it. To let the love I had for her live on in the way I raise them. And to accept that some days will always feel a little heavier than others. This is what grieving her looks like now. Not loud. Not all-consuming. Just quietly present, woven into the everyday moments of motherhood. And somehow… still full of love.

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