Before I meet my son

By Sarah Bissex

This Mother’s Day, I find myself in between.

I am almost exactly halfway to meeting my little boy. I am not yet a mother in the way my neighbours with grown children are, and not yet a new parent navigating naps and feeding schedules like many of my peers. My husband and I have not taken a straight path to get here, and for years, Mother’s Day belonged more to longing than celebration.

And yet, this year, it feels different. This year, Mother’s Day holds the past, the present, and something carefully unfolding.

When I read the stories of other mothers in this community, I realise our story is shaped by the families who came before us and will be sustained by those who will be parenting beside us.

Long before I imagined pushing a stroller down these streets, I watched mothers in Lowertown carry many things at once, joy and exhaustion, pride and worry, celebration and grief. I saw community organisations step in where families needed support, neighbours show up quietly, and parents teach their children not to look away from hardship, but to respond to it with care.

As I prepare to meet my son, I carry the hope that he will grow up in a place where community matters more than image, and where people are valued for how they show up for one another. I want him to know the parks, the art, the history, and also the compassion that defines this neighbourhood when things are hard.

This Mother’s Day, I honour the mothers who came before me, the mothers I will raise my child beside, and those for whom this day is carried quietly – with grief, longing, or uncertainty still finding its shape.

I am learning that motherhood is not marked by a single moment, but by the communities that hold us through every stage. For me, that place is Lowertown and I cannot wait to share it with my son.