What You Don't See
Written by Adina Belloli, Co-Founder of The Motherless Mothers.
Views expressed are those of the contributors, not our organisation, which does not accept responsibility for their accuracy, legality, or content.
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My phone sent me a memory notification this morning. One year ago today. I opened it laughing, because of course it’s this photo.
I had the flu. Real flu, not a cold-but-calling-it-flu. I was on a family holiday in Miami and the only room in the house with a door that shut was the bathroom, so that’s where I sat, laptop balanced on the counter, tissues at the ready, trying not to sound as awful as I felt or looked.
Back in the UK, Lou was on the floor of her toddler’s bedroom. Not sitting… lying down, laptop propped up on the carpet, because that was the only way to keep one eye on a one-year-old who had zero interest in his mum being on an important call. One hand holding a toy train hostage so he wouldn’t cry.
That’s what we looked like when we told Peanut App why The Motherless Mothers charity needed to exist.
This is the photo. This is really what it looked like.
Peanut said yes.
We cried after. Relief, mostly. And something that felt like being believed. We’d been carrying this thing for a while by then, on our own time, unpaid, wondering if anyone with real reach would ever take it as seriously as we did.
That yes became the beginning of something bigger than we let ourselves imagine that day: landmark research into the sheer scale of motherless motherhood and how many women are quietly living it. It became the first Mother Loss Awareness Day on 23rd October last year, which we co-hosted with them at the Houses of Parliament.
A year on, and the photo still makes us laugh, but it also stops us for a second. We’re still just two people. Still unpaid. Still doing this around toddlers and teenagers, the flu, paid jobs, and everything else life doesn’t pause for. Nobody was in a boardroom that day. Nobody had it together. We just kept going, because this matters more than looking polished ever could. Our belief hasn’t wavered once. We won’t stop until the whole world is on board.
If you’re building something of your own right now, from whatever unglamorous corner of your house, we see you. This is what it actually looks like for us, most of the time. And a year from now, it might just be your yes.
Adina & Lou