I Miss My Mom the Most On My Birthday

A Gift for Mom! 🤍

Today is my birthday.

I’ve had 42 of them since the last one I celebrated with my mom. She died when I was 12 years old. Back then, she would spend the day in our kitchen making a birthday cake just for me. Sometimes there would be a party with family and friends, and other times it was just the five of us. But I was always celebrated and made to feel special. And she was at the center of it all. Just like for 12 years, she was the center of my world.

I had a good birthday today. I woke up to my husband playing a birthday song for me he found online. Later, I heard from my children as well as my grandchildren. My husband went shopping and made us a lovely supper. He made my favorite steak, filet mignon, with stuffed baked potatoes. It was a perfect meal. We even finished it off with some dark chocolate, my favorite.

RELATED: I Was Too Young to Lose My Mom

But all day I have felt just a tiny bit empty. Like I always do when my birthday and other special days roll around. There’s this tiny space inside of me that, if I’m honest with myself, is with me every day.

As pleasant as my birthday was, I can’t stop wishing for the hug I haven’t felt for many years, the one I remember so well that I can actually still feel it.

I want to hear my name roll off her lips, in her voice, wrapped around the smile that was always on her face just for me.

I long for that feeling that radiated off her, the one that let me know I was the most loved person in the world.

Birthdays have a way of adding up. As I’ve counted each one since my mom died, I’ve also been counting my time away from her. And that time is growing more and more every year. But that doesn’t mean I miss her any less.

I wonder, when my mom was dying, if she thought ahead to all the birthdays I would have without her. I wonder if she felt ahead to the sadness that would one day be mine. I wonder if she grieved with me way back then.

RELATED: Only a Motherless Daughter Knows

Did she picture me beyond the little girl who wanted nothing more than to hold her all the time? Was she able to imagine the surly teenager I’m sure I would have turned into, the one who no longer thought she had a place next to me? Did she see me as a young woman, a young wife, a young mother? Was she able to think all the way ahead to now, to this place where I am—what she never had the time to be—a grandmother?

I’ll never know any of that, but I suspect she did. I suspect she wished she could bottle up all her love to leave behind for me, love that I could pour out just a tiny bit each year, always making sure I saved enough for later, for when she knew I would still need her.

I imagine she tried to figure out a way to leave her love behind for me.

I miss my mom today, just like I do every day. But I know the way I miss her so much is a reflection of the love she managed to pour out onto me in the 12 short years she had with me.

And, even through my sadness, I still feel like she’s with me. Her eyes just happened to be the exact shade of the ones I look into every time I stare at my daughter’s beautiful face. Her incredible wit comes out of my son’s mouth pretty much every time I talk to him. Snippets of conversations I have with family and friends bring with them an echo of words I heard her say so long ago. Her memory floats around, comforting me even though I can’t have her anymore.

RELATED: For As Long As We Love, We Grieve

I missed having a mom reach out to me today. I think she would have made me the orange cake with orange frosting that she was so famous for. Of course, that would have been after the spaghetti, salad, and garlic bread supper she would have served up for me. And the gift? I wouldn’t have needed one.

No gift could match just being with her.

As I sit writing this, my birthday is almost over. It was a good day. And I’m glad to end it with the one person I’ve missed all day. I’m glad to have this time to rest at the end of the day and reflect on the woman whose very life is the reason I’m in this world.

There are four words I’ve longed to say for most of my life. I don’t know what’s been holding me back.

I love you, Mom.

So God Made a Grandmother book by Leslie Means

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A GRANDMA

Order Now!

i miss my mom I miss my mother mom mom in heaven Mother motherless motherless daughter my mom

Sandy Brannan

Sandy Brannan, author of Becoming Invisible, So Much Stays Hidden, Masquerade, and Frozen in Time, is a high school English teacher. Creating memories with her grandchildren is her idea of a perfect day. You can follow Sandy and read more of her writing at https://sandybrannan.com http://facebook.com/sandybrannanauthor http://instagram.com/sandybrannanauthor and amazon.com/author/sandybrannan .

When I Look In the Mirror, I See My Mother

In: Grief

Woman with mother smiling in older photo

Recently, whenever I look in the mirror, I see a strong resemblance to my mother. People always said I looked like her, but I never really saw it until now. I think it may be because you always think of your parents as being older than you are. At the age of 61, I am now only two years away from the age my mother was when she died. The only good thing about dying young is that everyone will remember you that way. I have only known my mom as the vibrant, personable, and active woman she was. Well,...

Keep Reading

I Lost My Daughter on Mother’s Day: 3 Truths I’m Believing Today

In: Grief, Loss, Motherhood

Editor’s note: This post discusses child loss Child loss changes Mother’s Day. My 19-month-old, Julia, died suddenly on Mother’s Day in 2024. Three months later, her autopsy revealed she had B-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (B-ALL, also known as SUDNIC). Julia died a week after we did an embryo transfer at an IVF clinic in an attempt to have a second child. We found out three days after Julia’s death that the embryo did not make it either. Six months later, we did another embryo transfer that succeeded, and I now have an 8-month-old daughter, Lucy Mei (“Mei Mei” means “little...

Keep Reading

I Miss Having Parents

In: Grief

Grown daughter posing between smiling parents

I have been living with the ache of loss for so long that I truly don’t remember what it feels like not to carry it. Sometimes it rests quietly beneath my ribs, dormant and almost polite. Other times it rises without warning—on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon, in the middle of a coffee line—and cuts straight through me. Today, it was a song. I was waiting for my coffee when “Pictures of You” by The Cure drifted through the café speakers. I hadn’t heard it in 20 years. In my twenties, it meant heartbreak—young love unraveling, relationships ending before they were...

Keep Reading

What No One Tells You about Losing a Sibling

In: Grief

Nobody tells you that when you lose a sibling, your entire childhood flashes before your eyes. There’s no better witness to what you experienced growing up than that one person who was standing nearby for all of it. And when they’re gone, a part of that childhood and a part of that story goes with them, because it was only ever known between the two of you. There’s no last chance to say, “Remember when?” or to laugh about the things that made you laugh to tears together, a million times at the kitchen table. There’s no last conversation about...

Keep Reading

Grief Didn’t Break Me, It Rearranged Me

In: Grief

I survived losing my father after his long, grueling battle with cancer. It was one of the most difficult seasons of my life. I had a front row seat to watch cancer pick him apart piece by piece. When you lose a parent, you lose a part of yourself. They say time heals all wounds, but you never stop missing the good ones, and there are days when it feels like it just happened. By the grace of God, I survived, but I will always miss my father. Then, almost a decade later, I lost the career that helped me...

Keep Reading

I’m Learning To Be Soft and Strong

In: Grief

During the weeks we cared for my grandmother in hospice, survival mode felt necessary. There were medications to track. Visitors to update. Logistics to manage. I remember sitting on the couch that served as my makeshift bed and listening to the rhythmic hissing and puffing of the oxygen machine one night. While my mom showered off the day, I texted my sister updates and sent my husband a quick message of love. I could still smell the lavender candle we had lit earlier in the day to mask medical scents. The house was quiet, but my mind wasn’t. I was...

Keep Reading

The Legacy Our Mothers Leave Is In the Details

In: Grief

Woman's hands holding beautifully wrapped small gift

It has been two months and nine days since my mom passed away. The first several weeks were spent on the details and logistics of planning her service. She passed in December, so once her beautiful service had passed, I busied myself with the preparations for Christmas. By mid-February, I finally began to process some feelings of grief on a deeper level. The quiet of this less-busy season is allowing the grief to soak in a bit more. Not the big things; not the obvious, grief-heavy reminders that stop me in my tracks. Instead, I’ve been noticing the small things....

Keep Reading

You Never Get Over Losing Your Mother

In: Grief

It’s been 10 years since I last heard my mother’s voice. Ten years since I could pick up the phone and ask a question I already knew the answer to, just to hear her say it anyway. Ten years since someone loved me in that very specific, unconditional, occasionally annoying way that only a mother can. My mom died in 2015. And while “passed away” sounds softer, more polite, the truth is that she left. Suddenly. Permanently. With no forwarding address. She was gone. What I’ve learned in the decade since is not what I expected. I thought the biggest lesson...

Keep Reading

My Husband Is By My Side Through Every Storm

In: Grief, Marriage

The year 2025 began as a quiet storm. I was slipping into the fog of depression while navigating the early chaos of perimenopause, and some days simply getting out of bed felt impossible. My thoughts felt dark and heavy, my body unfamiliar, my energy nonexistent, and my moods uncontrollable. And yet, in the haze, there was one constant: my husband. He noticed the subtle shifts I barely acknowledged. The sighs, the quiet retreats into myself, the moments I almost broke. Instead of judgment or frustration, he offered presence. He held space for my struggle without trying to “fix” it, and...

Keep Reading

Losing My Mom Shaped Me As a Mother

In: Grief

Becoming a mother has a way of bringing old wounds back to the surface, even ones you believed had healed. I never imagined grief would surface so strongly in my motherhood journey. I thought it was something you carried silently, something that faded with time. But becoming a mother felt like my loss rising to its feet and saying, I’m still here There are moments when I reach for my phone to call my mom, only to be met with the reminder that I can’t. I want to ask her if what I’m feeling is normal, if the exhaustion softens,...

Keep Reading

She Says Hello From Heaven

Grief

She Says Hello From Heaven

Please Don't Feel Sorry For the Mom of All Boys

Baby

I Miss My Mom the Most On My Birthday

RELATED: I Was Too Young to Lose My Mom

As pleasant as my birthday was, I can’t stop wishing for the hug I haven’t felt for many years, the one I remember so well that I can actually still feel it.

RELATED: Only a Motherless Daughter Knows

I imagine she tried to figure out a way to leave her love behind for me.

RELATED: For As Long As We Love, We Grieve

No gift could match just being with her.

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A GRANDMA

Sandy Brannan

When I Look In the Mirror, I See My Mother

I Lost My Daughter on Mother’s Day: 3 Truths I’m Believing Today

I Miss Having Parents

What No One Tells You about Losing a Sibling

Grief Didn’t Break Me, It Rearranged Me

I’m Learning To Be Soft and Strong

The Legacy Our Mothers Leave Is In the Details

You Never Get Over Losing Your Mother

My Husband Is By My Side Through Every Storm

Losing My Mom Shaped Me As a Mother

Get It Now

So God Made a Mother

I Miss My Mom the Most On My Birthday

As pleasant as my birthday was, I can’t stop wishing for the hug I haven’t felt for many years, the one I remember so well that I can actually still feel it.

I imagine she tried to figure out a way to leave her love behind for me.

No gift could match just being with her.

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A GRANDMA

When I Look In the Mirror, I See My Mother

I Lost My Daughter on Mother’s Day: 3 Truths I’m Believing Today

I Miss Having Parents

What No One Tells You about Losing a Sibling

Grief Didn’t Break Me, It Rearranged Me

I’m Learning To Be Soft and Strong

The Legacy Our Mothers Leave Is In the Details

You Never Get Over Losing Your Mother

My Husband Is By My Side Through Every Storm

Losing My Mom Shaped Me As a Mother

Previous Post

Next Post

You May Also Like