When you’ve been a mother for as long as I have (nearly 31 years, but who’s counting?), special occasions like Mother’s Day can start to blur together. It can be tough to try to figure out which child gave me which ceramic handprint on which particular Mother’s Day — unless, of course, the kindergarten teacher who supervised the handprint-making activity had the foresight to scrawl my child’s name on the back of his or her creation. (Thanks, teacher!)

But while most Mother’s Days tend to run together in my head — happy times spent in the company of my husband and my four kids — some Mother’s Days have proven to be a bit more memorable than the rest, for reasons both happy and sad.

Take Mother’s Day 1988, for example. I was 38 weeks’ pregnant and both hugely pregnant and hugely impatient to give birth. I couldn’t wait to meet my baby. I couldn’t wait to become a mother. I was excited and nervous about what lay ahead — and very conscious that my life would be radically different the next time Mother’s Day rolled around: I would actually be someone’s mother.

That was a Mother’s Day high point — a day spent in delicious anticipation of the birth of a much-wanted baby.

But I’ve experienced some Mother’s Day low points, too, years when I wanted to skip the day entirely because it was too painful to think about motherhood at all.

Take Mother’s Day 1997, for example. I was reeling from the stillbirth of my fourth child the previous fall. Or Mother’s Day 2003, when I was trying to make sense of the sudden and unexpected death of my mother just a few months earlier. On both of these occasions, I found myself going through the Mother’s Day motions for the sake of my other children while waiting for the day to end so I could forget about Mother’s Day for another year.

Sometimes Mother’s Day is sad.

Sometimes motherhood is sad.

When you love someone intensely and deeply, with all your heart, you leave yourself vulnerable to grief and pain and loss. Whether you’re a mother who has lost a child or a child who has lost a mother, the loss is searing and life-changing.

The upside of that pain, of course, is joy — joy that can find its way into your life again.

I remember the intense joy I felt on Mother’s Day 1998 — seven months after the birth of my youngest son and nineteen months after his sister was stillborn. As I cradled him in my arms and looked into his soulful little eyes, I savoured the fact that, on that particular Mother’s Day, I was basking in the sunlight of gratitude and happiness rather than shivering in the shadows of grief.

If you are a mother whose heart is breaking this Mother’s Day, here’s what you need to know:

• You are not alone (even though it may feel that way). Other women are grappling with the same difficult mix of emotions as you are on this day that is dedicated to all things motherhood and moms.

• And not every Mother’s Day will be as painful as this one. We’re a resilient bunch, after all, after all. You will find joy in your life again. And you deserve to feel that joy.

Ann Douglas is the author of numerous books about pregnancy and parenting including Trying Again: A Guide to Pregnancy after Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Infant Loss and, most recently, Happy Parents, Happy Kids and Parenting Through the Storm: How to Handle the Highs, the Lows, and Everything in Between.