Pinot, Bretzels, and Cathedrals

Just a heads up. There are somewhat incoherent and occasionally sad pitying thought up ahead.

Motherhood. Multifaceted and complicated.

Just as soon as you’ve got over the anxiety of whether or not the baby is going to latch on to your boob, and believe me, that’s a very real stress, you move on to the next phase. Cluster feeding. Sleeplessness. Leaving them at day care. Potty training. Regression when Baby No. 2 appears. Socialising with new kids. Being influenced by societal norms, trying to stick to our values and beliefs in the face of where we are in the moment. The kids being sick. Bullying and harassment- in either direction. How we do things and pretend it’s for them but it’s also for us. For our sanity. How to be there for them but how to allow them to learn lessons for themselves. Trying to maintain a career- or not. All in no particular order (perhaps with the exception of discovering if they’ll latch to your boob or not. That’s a no brainer).

Each phase comes with its own set of challenges. And what I personally felt was a challenge wasn’t necessarily the same for other moms. The forums are all there to guide us through that. Our girlfriends, our villages.

For the times when we feel like we’re in the trenches, time seems to pass at infinitesimal snails pace. (I thought I would never get out of the phase when Beth started biting her day-care peers. Two years later she took a bite out of Alex’s chest in the first week we were here in France. Something to do with not sharing. This may be the longest phase yet, but at least she is aware of her behaviour these days).

But when we look back at the trenches, we can accept it was short lived, in the space of having the bigger picture. For with every new phase, we have a new set of challenges, and – let’s be honest with ourselves: we learn and grow ourselves in the face of this.

I am certain we all agree that our journeys are a.) not the same, and b.) tempered evenly with joyous moments and tough times. I myself went through a period where the reality of my daughter being the victim of sexual advances as a young child, and later being bullied at school (my vok, men are shits) that set her mental health back for years, and honestly, what is harder on a mom: 8 weeks of pre-toddler diarrhoea or knowing the teenager is hiding behind mental scars?

But of course, the good times! They’re there too. They range from watching them take their first steps all the way up to, but not concluding in trekking across the world for university. Their wide eyed wonder at seeing the Eiffel Tower for the first time. Being forced to stay in bed so they can bring you breakfast. Taking an aeroplane flight across the continents, reacting to the ‘howzit bru?’ back home, and still looking forward to returning to baguettes, their French beds and their friends. Dipping their feet in oceans. Taking selfies to mark the occasion. Finding love when you didn’t think they would ever feel comfortable in their body. Seeing how they have found themselves despite watching their father die from a brain tumour.

Intimate ramblings of being a widowed mother.

I try so hard not to make my existence about being a widow but it has a way of creeping into my fibre and soul. I spent much of 2025 consciously putting my feet in front of one another to move forward. To find a way to exist without Anton at my side. I was proud of the things I ticked off a list, although ashamed that I even had to have them on a list. The first anniversary of Antons’ passing came by and I figured that was that: that I could no longer grant myself space to grieve my loss, that I had no more excuses in life, and under the adage of this very Generation X woman, I just had to ‘buck up’. Put on a new tough skin. Don’t let the slightly worn membranes be seen.

In all probability, returning to an old skin is possible if we were single. I, however, am finding it a lot more challenging than just ‘that’ [insert a finger snap here]. We evolve. (Or do we? I’m having an existential crisis as I write these words)

These hatchlings I gave birth to are now fledglings. While we have been joined at the hip, in our nest for 18 and 15 years, closer than ever before since Antons’ diagnosis, they are now preening their wings and take their own little flights away from me.

Or is the simile better if I pretend they’re lion cubs? How the lioness is left to guard and feed her cubs, while teaching them to hunt. How to exist on their own.

Either way, they fly, they leave the nest, they think they are strong enough to be in this world on their own. It’s courageous. It’s brave. It’s how we’ve raised them.

What does it leave behind?

And this is what I currently sitting with.

How do I prepare myself for the moments where my girls aren’t with me? We’ve been really tight over the last 2 years- my companions if I may be honest. Now I watch them make plans on their own, come home at an hour later than usual, I should be relishing being single, just setting aside my chores and saying fuckit and head off to do something that makes me happy. Except I can’t. It’s part of my existence now to come home, to make sure there’s a meal that we can eat together. To check on Thandi who spends her entire day alone. To stare at the dust and hair and grime that homes gather by just being. I’m so attuned to this existence that stepping away to build something new feels like a lot.

And the loneliness hasn’t felt this eerie in a very long time.

Look, this is all very miserable, but you know me: I try to keep it honest. Let’s call it a phase, a period of adjustment because I know what my job is. My job is to encourage my girls to take flight, to be courageous, and I can’t set that example by moping, and passive-aggressively sweeping the floor on my hands and knees. Perhaps what I’m seeking is a way through the mire. Millions of children have grown up, sought life away from their parents, and while mine aren’t there yet, this period of separation that is my current reality feels harder to navigate without Anton around. I’ve got no one to confide in, no partner to while away the quiet hours with and I’m really, really struggling. Almost daily I find myself saying out loud to the walls around me « Anton, why did you have to fucking go and die on me? »

If my Mom were on the other end of a phone call she would likely tell me to find an activity that I’m expected to attend weekly, to get out and make new friends. But Mom passed away 11 years ago this week so there’s another moment of bitterness to indulge in.

It turns out I’m still in a cycle of grief. That I still need to ask for help.

I was going to dedicate my writing this month with a tribute to our high school friend Wendy. She passed away at the end of April. The whispers from other corners of the world were saying that she was depressed, and it hit me hard. I have started writing an essay, but in the end it felt fake and convoluted because I’ve not seen Wendy since a 30th birthday party in 2007. I am in no position to write that kind of essay, but I think by speaking about the dark days brings them to the light. I do know, however, that that is easier said than done.

Motherhood is about evolving. Whether or not I did it as a wife, or do it as a widow, these same emotions would all need to be addressed. I sit on the cusp of a new challenge, and I just need to learn how to deal with it.

I made this note below and popped it in italics, deliberately leaving it at the end of the essay as a way of ending. It serves to remind me that I don’t have to remain constant in this body every day’s that were allowed to change. It probably speaks of growth, but to me it gives me a place of grace.

Who we are today does not have to be the person we are next year.

Typically in these essays I like to pepper the page with photos that bring me joy. I’m not sure the following do it justice this month, it seems to involve dozens of glasses of wine, some random food plates, lots of dog love, but it feels like there’s an absence of people. Am I trying too hard, overthinking the situation?

To Mom, who is 11 years gone now, I wish you were here with Anton, to give me wisdom. We miss you, both, always.

On that sombre note, I wish you all my love. May the days going forward bring you each something special as you all go through stuff. Thank you for the moments of long late-at-night phone calls (you know who you are), for the WhatsApp chats, for the coffee dates, for bringing yourselves to my home, for getting me outside, for listening to me drone on. You’re all amazing.

A bientot

Xx