Mother’s Day grief: How to talk to someone about their dead mum from Danielle Snelling, Motherless Daughters Australia

Mother’s Day can be a really tough day for a lot of people, for many different reasons.

But for those who have lost their mum, it’s more than just Sunday that’s hard. 

Anywhere you look right now, shops are filled with gift ideas for Mum, and there are ads and emails from every brand you’ve ever ordered from, and it can make the grief hit you in ways you never expected. 

But for those who want to check in with a friend or loved one about the loss of their mum and to offer support, the time to do it is now. 

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“If you’re checking in on Mother’s Day, it’s too late,” Danielle Snelling, Co-Founder and Executive Officer of Motherless Daughters Australia, tells 9honey. 

“The lead-up is really hard. Mother’s Day is hard, but the lead-up’s difficult because we’re bombarded with Mother’s Day stuff.”

Snelling knows how hard the day can be, after losing her mum Rosa to a rare form of gynaecological cancer in 2012. 

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Snelling believes checking in with someone and simply validating how they feel right now can really help. 

“Just to say, ‘Hey, I can imagine all this noise around you right now must be really awful, how are you going?’ or, ‘How are you feeling about Mother’s Day coming up? Do you want to talk about your mum?'” 

She said most people want to, although there are some who don’t, but having these conversations can bring their mum back to life for that day, which is important. 

“Someone said to me a couple of years ago, ‘I ran into your mum in the supermarket 20 years ago, and I was baking’ – my mum used to be good at baking sponge cakes, and this person was making a sponge, and said, ‘I needed to substitute for such and such and your mum told me I can use this instead,'” she recalled.

‘I was like, ‘Oh, wow’. It’s a nothing conversation, and it’s a nothing piece of information, but that person talked about my mum and she didn’t shy away from it.”

Snelling added that when you don’t talk about someone, it keeps them dead, but moments like this bring them back in a really special way – even if for a short moment. 

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While some people might feel awkward about bringing up someone’s dead parent, Snelling makes the point that you won’t be bringing up anything the person isn’t aware of. 

“I say, ‘You can never remind someone that they have a dead mum,'” she said. 

“We know we have a dead mum every second of every day, and nothing that you say is gonna remind us of that because we don’t forget. So just bring it up.

“To help normalise the conversation around grief, we’re educating Australians that ‘Grief isn’t brief’ while providing conversation prompts so that Australians can take an informed approach when talking to those navigating grief, rather than avoiding the topic altogether.

Snelling acknowledges grief, while it is an experience many people go through, is different when you’re grappling with the loss of your mum, which is how Motherless Daughter’s Australia was born. 

When she lost her mum at 23, it was isolating, and with no support she went searching for something outside of seeing someone like a therapist.

Eventually she found Eloise, who had also lost her mum at 13, through Facebook. The ladies, who were the same age at the time, met and shared their experiences which she said was “life changing”. 

“I knew instantly that she was all the support I needed and understanding and validation straight away,” Snelling added. 

They soon realised there would be thousands of other women out there who were in the same boat, struggling with the loss of their mum, and that’s how they got started in creating the community they have now.

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