'Willie you will live longer than me': an autoethnography of reclaiming mothering my first-born

Abstract

Writing the stories of the lives of my three children who died of unrelated causes had unexpected consequences. I found myself released from exile. I had long felt banished from the world of mothering. This is an autoethnography on mothering Toni, my first-born child. She died in 1983 aged 13 years, 4 years after a diagnosis of leukaemia. The key to reclaiming my mother-love for Toni was to peel away the armour and expose my ambivalence about mothering. My ambivalence included the harrowing roller coaster ride of high anxiety, deep resentment and the pure ecstasy of mother love. My ambivalence, heightened by the years of Toni's illness, included my secret thoughts of wishing it was all over. Mortified by my 'bad' thoughts, I find my freedom by researching my and Toni's life and the motherhood literature to reach an acceptance of my past. I have a renewed sense of my mothering self.