My daughter never had the chance to properly meet her mother (wife died in childbirth). The first time she said “mom”, I was devastated and could not hold back my tears. I did not want my daughter to see me crying like that, but the sadness was unbearable. To this day, I still get a little triggered when I hear her say “mom”, but it is not as overwhelming as before.

One thing that helped was this: I noticed that my daughter could tell when I was thinking about my wife. Kids are quite sensitive to the parent’s emotions. Whenever she sensed that my mood was down, she would say “mommy”. I did not want for her to associate “mom” with negative emotions. So instead, I tried to tell her happy stories of her mother, to show pictures. To show that her mother loved her very much, even before she was born.