Leigh Van Der Horst lost her mum to cancer when she was just 32, and a mother to three young boys.
Fighting through her grief, Leigh kept a diary, recording how she got through each day without her rock, Joanne.
Now, the mother of four from Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula has turned her outpourings of emotion into a book on what it’s like to be a motherless mother...
“Losing a parent is quite a fearful feeling,” Leigh told news.com.au. “They’ve been with you every day of your life. And that loss does continue, it keeps knocking on the door.
“The children say, ‘I wish nanny could have seen this’ — she was a huge part of their lives. I had to step it up in terms of encouragement, and I had to have faith in my choices.
“The good days and bad days come. There have certainly been times when I thought, this is too hard.”
For a year after Joanne died, Leigh floundered. “I was smoking, I had a glass or two of wine every night — those things multiply, because you realise they feel good.”
She says her sons kept her going when all she wanted to do was lie low. “There are people relying on you. You still have to get up, drive them to places.
“It was busy year, being a parent. I didn’t want to cross paths with anyone. Some people would want to hear all about it, other people wanted to run away. I didn’t want either.
“I felt safe at home. There’s no warning at all as to when you’re going to break.”
One night, Leigh went out with friends and drank too much, and found herself sitting on the kitchen floor, sobbing. “That was a turning point,” she said. “I was thinking I couldn’t go on. It hit me like a truck, I realised I had to do something positive and seek help.”
Much of what helped Leigh through the aftermath of her mother’s death was Joanne’s own wisdom in the final days of her illness.
She had told her daughter she wanted her to take a year to find her way. After that, she encouraged Leigh to pursue her plan to retrain as a nurse, if it was still what she wanted. Having seen the palliative care given to her mother in her last few months, something had “sparked” in the 32-year-old about changing career. “It was a real eye-opener into how valuable an industry it is.”
Three years after her mother’s death, Leigh and her husband had their fourth son. She says she is a very different mother now. “I’m teaching them about gratitude. I was a very negative person, who always wanted more. I wasn’t very ambitious.
“This completely changed me. You learn what’s important and what’s not. I do everything I can to have an exciting life. Not in terms of travelling the world, but in having a life worth living.
“I have a sense of direction, and I’m hoping my children have a positive home to grow up in. It’s terrific to see that coming out of them in certain ways. They see the world in a different way to how I did when I was growing up.”
Seven years after Joanne died, Leigh wrote her book, Without My Mum, in the hope it would help others realise they aren’t alone, and make sense of their grief. And she went further, inviting other motherless mothers to share their stories, and starting a private Facebook community to bring them together. “In a time when women are tearing each other down a lot, it’s wonderful to see them building each other up.”
The book features words of wisdom from famous mothers including Jools Oliver, Natalie Bassingthwaite, Lisa Wilkinson, Megan Gale and Amanda de Cadenet, as well as normal mums from across the world.
Looking back, Leigh feels proud of how she coped with motherhood while coming to terms with losing her own parent. “It’s something so many mums have to do and we don’t stop and acknowledge that.
“Being a mum, you are a selfless person, and you are expected to do that around the clock. If a mum isn’t 100 per cent, the whole family’s out of whack.
“But grief has no limits: there’s no time limit and there aren’t any rules. You’re allowed space to try anything you believe might lift you.”
Leigh says a family member’s death never goes away, and she gradually realised she wanted to tell her story and talk to others about their journeys too. “The women I spoke to, none of us believe our mothers are actually gone.
“The older we get, the more like our mothers we become. I haven’t seen her in seven years, but I’m more like her than ever. That’s important, to know they are part of you.”
Leigh’s book Without My Mum is available to buy at Vivid Publishing, or visit her blog Leigh V Loves for more of her writing.