Every year, on a specific day, I scroll through my phone and my chest tightens. I am reminded that today is one of those days that is so happy for some, and so painful for others. Facebook greets me with hearts and a pink-coloured post with the title: ‘Happy Mother’s Day’. I turn off my phone and get up- I don’t, I scroll through.

The only truly compassionate post I come across each year is one by the brilliant illustrator, Mari Andrews. It is more often than not the only piece I will come across that truly celebrates a more universal notion Mother’s Day. Because being a mother, or being a daughter, does not always involve two individuals who are present and able to celebrate this day with chocolates and flowers; a day that is perhaps for them, too.

There are mothers who have lost their children. There are those who long but cannot be mothers. There are those who cannot have their mothers in their lives. There are those whose children were never born. And there are those, like myself, who have lost their mothers. It is this radically empathetic post by Andrews that celebrates all of us on this day- reminding us that celebration does not exist in a separate realm than grief, loss, pain, and confusion.

Yet I am not spiteful of those who do not mention these groups of people on Mother’s Day. Inevitably, if you celebrate one of one of the most fundamental human relationships in one single day, you will fall short one way or another. For obvious commercial reasons, this will not change- this, I do not doubt, even those who celebrate with breakfast in bed are well aware of.

Today, October 3, is my Mother’s Day. On this day, half a decade ago, my life changed. It is on this day that I choose to celebrate my own mother on. It is this day I will celebrate myself as a daughter. Today I will take myself out to the cinema. I will share popcorn with myself and remember my mother saying that there is no such thing as cinema without the popcorn. I will not do that if I don’t want to. I will celebrate from bed with cereal. I will spend time in the library. I will or will not do all or any of these things. Mother’s Day is for me, too. Mother’s Day is for her, too.

I urge all of us to have a Mother’s Day, or two, or three, that truly allows us to celebrate,  reflect, grieve in our own ways, our relationships with our mothers, whatever shape or form these take. It is not necessary to get your mother flowers or chocolates. It is not necessary to even speak to this person with whom you have a motherly relationship with. It is enough to take a few extra deep breaths. And, maybe, in five years, you will be able to go to the cinema and buy yourself some popcorn.