'A new era of grief.' The reality of mothering without a mum.

Everyone has an item in their house they would save in the event of a fire. It could be a treasured memento, a priceless artefact, or a family heirloom. For me, it’s an A4 ring binder. Yep, a folder.

My mum was an amazing cook. She was Greek, so cooking was in her DNA, but it was more than that. She could have been a chef. Mum’s dinner parties were legendary, and my sister and I grew up eating a different dinner every night. Her cooking took us on a trip around the world without ever having to leave the table. We’d have Indian samosas one night, Greek yemista the next night, and Thai beef lettuce cups after that. Dinner was an international adventure, no passport required.

For years, mum had a drawer in our house that was rammed full of recipes she had torn out from magazines. Karen Martini, Donna Hay and Jamie Oliver all lived in that drawer, popping out to spend dinner with us when mum would whip up one of their recipes.

While you're here, watch the lessons we've learned from our mums. Post continues after video.

For mum’s birthday one year, I took all of her handwriting-scribbled recipe clippings and put them into a special folder, organised into categories. Entrees, mains, pasta (its own category, of course), desserts and more. She cried when she opened it and proudly showed it to anyone who came over.

Now, that folder lives in my house, and the incredible woman who collated those clippings is gone.

Mum tragically passed away from cancer when I was 21. My best friend, my food guru, my entire world was gone. The monumental loss of our anchor shattered my Dad, sister and I into a million pieces.

Her diagnosis just months earlier was a death sentence. Stage 4, it was already in her brain. She was given three months to live. Our beautiful, funny, vibrant, healthy mum who I had finally emerged from my moody teenage phase just long enough to appreciate as my greatest friend in the world, was going to die. I remember howling as the reality of facing my whole life without her hit me like a freight train. "If you’re not here, I am never going to have kids. I don’t want to do it if you aren’t here!!!" I screamed, as she listened stoically, still reeling from shock.

Looking back, it’s somewhat strange that my uni student mind instantly feared this fictional future scenario without mum, when I had never given much thought to it before. But knowing what I know now, the searing fear I felt in that moment was justified. There are some things in life you just need your mum there for, none more so than having a baby yourself.

For a long time after her death, seeing other people with their mums or even hearing people talk about their mums brought a visceral pain that I struggle to put into words. At the time, my grieving mind told me all sorts of awful things to try to simply make it through each day.

"I’m the only one now, but I’m sure other people will go through this soon," my grieving mind, who I envision as the evil witch from Snow White, reassured me.

My mum, who wore activewear all the time before it was a trend. Image: Supplied.

Of course, my conscious mind (Snow White, I suppose) would never wish what I had been through on anyone, but the grieving mind is different. The grieving mind longs for shared suffering.

Time doesn’t heal all wounds, but after more than a decade, the grieving mind does quieten down.

After several years, I was finally able to be happy while listening to other people talk about their mums. Mother’s Day went from being a deeply traumatic annual event to a bittersweet one where we remembered all the wonderful things about her. I could hear someone say, "What’s everyone getting their mum for Christmas?" and only feel a pang of sadness before cheerily participating in the conversation, as opposed to being paralysed by a deep distress that would last for days.

But that nasty grief witch re-emerged from her dormant cave with vengeance in October last year, when I became a mum myself.

As I held my beautiful baby girl in my arms, the petrifying fear I had as a distraught 20-year-old became a reality.

Becoming a mum when you don’t have your own is an experience that’s impossible to describe. You can be surrounded by many wonderful people, as I was, but the only person you desperately want isn’t there. "A mother is the one who can take the place of all others, but whose place no-one else can take," as the saying goes.

During those brutal early newborn days, the cavernous hole that had been fragilely sealed over ripped open like a giant flesh wound. Her absence was palpable and a new type of grief came flooding in. I longed to be able to pick up the phone and call her for advice and reassurance. I would have given anything to have her pat my head, rock the baby, and tell me everything was going to be okay. I desperately wished I could ask her how she handled certain situations, or simply how she survived the fourth trimester.

Listen to This Glorious Mess. On this episode, Leigh opens up about parenting after losing her dad. Losing a parent is heartbreaking at the best of times, but the pain takes on a whole new dimension when you have kids of your own. Post continues after podcast.

As had happened many times over the years, I found myself as the only one without their mum in a social group, this time the new mother’s group I had joined. I saw and heard how their mums were there to support, guide and help them and was overcome by jealousy. The evil witch was well and truly resurrected.

But envying that support was just one, pretty selfish, part of this new era of grief. I was also flooded with deep sadness thinking about the experiences mum had missed out on. She would have given anything to cuddle this baby. To read her a story. To cook her a delicious meal. She would have been the most incredible "Yia Yia" and I am devastated she didn’t get the chance. It’s not fair.

As if this isn’t enough, there is a further element to this stage of grief that keeps me up at night. For the past 14 years, whenever I thought about my mum’s death, I thought about what it was like for us. I had no concept of how terrifying it must have been for her. To be told you are going to die and leave your children so suddenly is just horrific. Now that I have a child myself, thinking about this death sentence from her perspective haunts me.

Through all of this new grief, however, is also a new connection to mum. Every time I cuddle my little girl, put her down for a nap, change her nappy, or read her a book, I think "my mum did this for me." The sacrifices she made, the unconditional love she poured into us, the special way she made us feel, the happy childhood she and our amazing dad created for us - all of these things feel incredibly vivid to me now.

As I navigate each new phase in my own motherhood journey, I constantly think, "What would mum do?" Even though she isn’t here, the monumental impact she made during her life means I never have to spend long wondering. I just know.

My connection to mum is never stronger than when it comes to food. After she died, I tried to continue her food legacy by going to cooking school, catering for events, and holding my own fabulous mum-style dinner parties. Since having a baby, the dinner parties and events have dropped off, but a new chapter in the cookbook of my life has begun. Channelling mum by cooking for Poppy, and introducing her to a world of exciting flavours in the process, is the greatest privilege of my life. "My mum did this for me," I think, as I serve her dinner.

Thanks to technology, I don’t have a drawer full of my own magazine recipe clippings with handwritten notes on them to hand down to Poppy. But I can’t wait until she is old enough to be able to show her Yia Yia’s recipe folder. I will let her choose a dish, we’ll cook it together and it will be mum, not Karen, Jamie or Nigella, who will pop out to have dinner with us.

Chloe O’Toole is the Head of Marketing for Talent, and founder of Matching Meals.

Feature Image: Supplied.

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