Harry Potter author JK Rowling sent a touching and poignant message to her fans about how to spend Mother’s Day if your mum is no longer with you.
For those whose mothers have passed away, Mother’s Day can often be a painful reminder of what you have lost, but Rowling advised her 7 million Twitter followers to treat themselves even if they were unable to treat their mum – because she will always be a part of them.
The tweet, which the author has pinned to the top of her feed, has since been shared 18,000 times, and favourited nearly 56,000 times.
Rowling’s own mother passed away in 1990 due to complications of multiple sclerosis at the age of 45. The author has previously spoken about how sad she is that her mum never saw the success of the Harry Potter novels, because she “would have considered [it] to be a very valuable thing”.
She said on Woman’s Hour on Radio 4 in 2014: “My mother was a passionate reader, and she would have been excited whatever I did, if I succeeded at anything, but particularly to be a writer, she would have considered to be a very valuable thing.”
But “she never knew about Harry Potter – I started writing it six months before she died, so that is painful. I wish she’d known.”
Here’s hoping Rowling is also treating herself and taking a hug today.