Podcast Summary: The Tamsen Show

Episode: What I've Learned After 35 Years Without My Mom

Host: Tamsen Fadal
Date: May 4, 2026

Episode Overview

In this deeply personal and empathetic episode, Tamsen Fadal reflects on 35 years of living without her mother, who passed from breast cancer when Tamsen was 20. With Mother's Day approaching—a day that society often sells as joyful and uncomplicated—she addresses the nuanced realities of grief, longing, and the complexity of mother-daughter relationships. Whether your mother is gone, your relationship is strained, or you’re wrestling with grief of another kind, Tamsen opens up about her ongoing journey and shares wisdom, comfort, and tangible guidance for navigating holidays and everyday life without the mother you needed or lost.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Many Faces of Mother’s Day and Grief

Complicated Realities:
- Tamsen acknowledges that Mother’s Day is not universally happy, especially for those who have lost their mothers or have painful, nonexistent, or complex relationships with them.
  - “If your mom is gone, or if your relationship with her is painful or complicated or non-existent, you can feel incredibly alone in the middle of all this, like everyone else got something that you didn’t.” (01:57)
Personal Story:
- She lost her mom at 20, soon after relocating to a new city with her family:
  - “My mom died when I was 20 years old from breast cancer… within the second month of us being [in Tampa], she relapsed. And before we could even understand what was happening… she was diagnosed again. And then she was gone.” (03:02)

The Nature and Course of Grief

Non-Linear Journey:
- Grief persists in unexpected ways and doesn't resolve on a schedule.
  - “The grief doesn’t follow a schedule or a timeline. It doesn’t resolve and file itself away after a few years. It changes shape.” (05:01)
Stages Myth:
- Challenges the idea that grief is orderly or that it ever truly ends.
  - “I thought it was supposed to go in those stages of grief… But it doesn’t work like that. ... Grief moves more like an ocean than it does a calendar. It ebbs and flows.” (08:03)
  - “It can go real calm and quiet for stretches, and then a wave comes and knocks you out flat. It’s not a sign you’re not healing.” (08:32)

Moving Forward, Not 'Moving On'

Carrying Memories Forward:
- Distinction between ‘moving on’ (leaving someone behind) and ‘moving forward’ (carrying them with you).
  - “My mom doesn’t get smaller as my life gets bigger. She comes with me and I think about her at every significant moment like she is there, just not how I would love her to be.” (09:05)

Keeping Loved Ones Alive Through Stories

Say Her Name:
- Importance of talking about and remembering those we lost.
  - “As long as you’re speaking her name and sharing who she was, you are keeping something alive that does not have to die just because she did.” (09:29)
All Emotions Coexist:
- You don’t have to let go of old love to make room for new love.

The Wisdom from Others

Depth of Grief Mirrors Depth of Love:
- Quoting neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki:
  - “You couldn’t feel the depth of pain without there being the depth of that love. … The grief was just the love with nowhere to go.” (10:45)
Legitimacy of Other Types of Grief:
- Recognizing those who grieve mothers who are still living, due to estrangement or unmet needs.
  - “Grieving what you didn’t have is all so really so legitimate… that grief that you’ve gone through deserves the same space and the same type of compassion as any other thing we’re talking about.” (11:47)

The Concept of 'Mother Hunger' (Kelly McDaniel’s Work)

Three Essential Elements of Maternal Love:
- Nurturance, protection, and guidance. When any are missing, it leaves a profound—and valid—imbalance in one’s adult life.
  - “When any one of those three things—nurturance, protection, and guidance—is missing, you feel it in different ways in your life. You feel that hunger for touch, for belonging…” (12:48)
Not a Character Flaw:
- The lack of those elements isn’t a flaw but a gap that can be filled in other ways.
  - “That is not a character flaw. That is a gap that was created and never filled.” (15:31)

Rebuilding and Finding Maternal Energy Elsewhere

Support is Available in Other Forms:
- You can find nurturance, protection, and guidance in friends, mentors, therapists, and community—even if the original source was lacking.
  - “I’ve had people that have given me all three of those things in the absence of my own mother. … You don’t replace your mother. But you can build something that holds you in some of those ways.” (15:52)

Practical Guidance for Those Grieving

Let the Wave Hit You:
- Try not to outrun the feelings. Allow grief to wash over you and be processed, rather than suppressed.
  - “The wave is going to eventually find you. And letting it come when it comes is less exhausting than trying to outrun it.” (16:37)
Move Your Body:
- Physical activity helps manage the heaviness of grief.
  - “When grief sits in you, it can feel like this tight chest… Getting outside tells your nervous system something different. It doesn’t take the grief away, of course, but… it kind of loosens things a little bit.” (17:17)
Write a Letter:
- Expressing your feelings by writing to your mother (or the mother you wish you had) can be healing.
  - “Write to your mom, write her a letter, tell her what’s been happening, tell her what you miss, tell her what you’re proud of, tell her what you’re angry about. … That letter’s for you.” (18:05)
Seek Out Support:
- Find people who can simply hold space for you, such as friends or therapists.
  - “Find the people who can hold some space for it. Not people who want to fix it or hurry along, people who can sit with you in it. If you don’t have that person… maybe a good therapist, maybe somebody who works with grief could be that person.” (19:01)

Notable Quotes & Moments

On Grief’s Longevity:
- “My mom died so many years ago, and I still feel that.” (20:26)
On Grieving 'What Could Have Been':
- “Grieving the mother you needed and didn’t get… that grief… deserves the same space and the same type of compassion as any other thing we’re talking about. You’re not less than. That’s not less than just because your mother is still alive and maybe you don’t have that relationship.” (12:00)
On Allowing Yourself to Feel:
- “You don’t have to perform joy. You don’t have to explain your grief to anybody. You don’t have to be okay. And you don’t have to not be okay either. You can be whatever you need to be. Just be gentle with yourself, please.” (20:06)

Timestamps for Key Segments

01:23 — Opening reflections on the realities of Mother’s Day without your mom
03:02 — Tamsen’s story of loss and relocating immediately before her mother’s death
05:01 — The evolving nature of grief after such loss
08:03 — The myth of staged, linear grief and the reality of “grief as ocean waves”
09:05 — Moving forward vs. moving on; carrying your loved one’s memory into new chapters
09:29 — The importance of speaking and remembering one’s loved one
10:45 — Wendy Suzuki’s insight on the relationship between love and grief
11:47 — Validity of grief from complicated or absent relationships
12:48 — Discussion of ‘Mother Hunger’: the three elements of maternal love
15:31 — These are not character flaws—they are gaps that can be filled in other ways
15:52 — How friendship, mentoring, and community can provide maternal energy
16:37 — Guidance for coping with grief “waves” on holidays
17:17 — The recommendation to move your body and change your physiology
18:05 — The healing practice of writing a letter to your mother (or to the mother you wish you had)
19:01 — The importance of finding safe, supportive people (or therapists) to sit with your grief

Closing Thoughts

Tamsen closes with a message of validation, understanding, and encouragement, reminding listeners that “if you are hurting this weekend, it is because you loved deeply.” She emphasizes the importance of not grieving in isolation, feeling whatever you feel, and seeking even small moments of relief and companionship. She invites listeners to share their own stories and reach out to friends for whom Mother’s Day might be especially hard, reinforcing the community and support at the core of her show.

For anyone who approaches Mother’s Day with a heavy heart, this episode offers empathy, practical wisdom, and a gentle permission to feel whatever you need to feel—and to know you’re not alone.

Transcript

Tamsen (0:00)

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Tamsen (1:23)

Hi there ladies. Welcome back to the show. So Mother's Day is this weekend and it made me think that we should talk about it for a little bit before it actually gets here. So I know that for a lot of women, Sunday is not a simple day, myself included. The world makes it look like it should be. There's brunches, there's flowers, there's cards, there's posts everywhere of women with their moms calling them their best friends. If that is not your reality, if your mom is gone, or if your relationship with her is painful or complicated or non existent, you can feel incredibly alone in the middle of all this, like everyone else got something that you didn't. So I, I really felt it was important to talk about this. And we've, we've talked a lot about moms and we've talked about grief on this show. But I just felt like with Mother's Day around the corner sometimes I don't sit with it all the time and I just try to get through it and not think about it. But I don't know, this year maybe I'm getting older. I don't know. So I lost my mom when I was 20 and there are women listening to this right now whose mother's alive but who grieve her just as much as I grieve mine, who's gone. Because maybe she was never really there, or because a relationship caused more hurt than it ever gave comfort, or. Or maybe you've had to create a distance just to take care of yourself. Whatever it is, I know grief is real and that grief counts. And there's no ceremony for it, which can make it even harder to carry. So this episode is one for all of us. I want to share what I've learned over the years about grief, about loss, about finding your way through a day when the world tells you you should be feeling one way, but you feel completely different. So pull up a chair. Maybe you're going for a walk. Whatever it is, we're going to sit together with this for a little bit again. My mom died when I was 20 years old from breast cancer. It came back very aggressively after years of her being treated. After two mastectomies, it metabolized to her liver and her lungs. And it moved fast as a family. It was my mom, my dad, my brother, my younger brother, myself. We had just relocated to Tampa, four of us, brand new city, still getting our footing. We were actually in a temporary apartment, trying to figure out where we were going to live. And within the second month of us being there, she relapsed. And before we could even understand what was happening and what was going on, she was diagnosed again. And then she was gone. And she passed away the day after Christmas. She was basically sick all that Christmas Day and by that night, incoherent, and passed away the next morning, December 26th. My brother was 16. I was. I just turned 20. And my dad and my brother and I were suddenly the three of us in a city where we barely knew anybody. Planning my mom's funeral. I spent the last 35 years doing everything without her. My first job, my first apartment, my wedding, my first one, and my second one, my divorce, which she, of course, never knew about, finding Ira, who I think she would love, who she never got to meet, writing a book, going through menopause, which, and this is something I think about a lot, she never got to warn me about, talk to me about, never got to tell me what it was like for her. I don't even know if she knew what she went through because she went through it due to cancer and chemotherapy. That intergenerational conversation that most women get to have with their moms. The ones where you realize, oh, that is what's happening, or that's what's going to happen. I never got that Like a lot of women, I went through the whole thing without her roadmap of life. And here's what I will tell you. I could not walk into a Hospital for 20 years after she died. At least, I mean, I did when I had to. But the smell alone would bring me to my knees. The grief doesn't follow a schedule or a timeline. It doesn't resolve and file itself away after a few years. I. I really have realized over time it changes shape. So when Mother's Day comes around and the world is asking me to feel something simple or just talking about it, I feel a lot of things. Gratitude for the 20 years I did have. Grief for everything that came after, and a particular kind of longing that I suspect a lot of. You know, the wish that she could have just seen a little more of who myself, my brother became who we are. I even think about it in the context of my brother, like never meeting my little nephew or my brother's wife and it's mind boggling the years that have gone by without her. I've been thinking a lot recently about what I actually know and have learned after 35 years of caring. This what's helped. What I wish somebody had told me earlier. The first thing is that grief doesn't move in this straight line and nobody should tell you it does.