Anne of Green Gables: motherhood shaped by love and grief

Guest post by Beccy of "Searching for Grace"

Amy from ‘Something Funny, Something True’ and Beccy from

Searching For Grace

have swapped Substack posts for the day to write about a topic near and dear to both their hearts: Anne of Green Gables. Make sure to check out both posts on both Substacks!

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Spoiler warning: the article ahead contains spoilers and discussions of key events and character deaths in the Anne of Green Gables series. But it’s been almost a century since the books first came out, so I don’t feel too bad giving away the ending.

When we think of Anne Shirley, we usually picture the red-haired impulsive little girl who arrived at Green Gables. She crashed into the life of the Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, who expected to adopt a well-behaved boy and instead got Anne with all her sorrowful past and exuberant approach to life. We might imagine the girl, then teenager, who brings chaos and laughter and life to Avonlea. In popular culture Anne is fixed as the girl with red braids, maybe a straw hat, standing in front of the green-gabled house that became her first home.

But in the traditional run of ‘Anne’ books, Anne spends almost half the series not as Anne Shirley but as Anne Blythe, the Doctor’s wife and mother of a growing family. Her family moves from Avonlea, away from the iconic Green Gables and live by the coast, in the Four Winds Harbour. Gilbert and Anne start their married life and soon become parents.

Anne, in these later books, is the kind of mother I aspire to be. She is patient, kind, and full of good humour. She can see the funny side in her children’s small tragedies while still holding space for all their big feelings. She is not perfect – she has her moments – but she is consistently good at mothering the little crew entrusted to her.

But this peace of family life is not easily won. Her mothering story starts with the worst thing a parent can endure – the loss of a child. In Anne’s House of Dreams, the little cottage (the titular House of Dreams) prepares for a very welcome and anticipated arrival. But the little girl, Joyce, who arrives, lives only a day. Anne is left with empty arms and a new grief.

My own start to motherhood was not smooth. My first positive pregnancy test was in September 2020, but it wasn’t until June 2023 that I held a living child in my arms. Though my two losses happened before birth, the account of Anne’s suffering is one I identify with every time I read it. Anne’s outburst is the honest lament of every mother who loses a wanted and loved child:

“It doesn't seem FAIR,” said Anne rebelliously. “Babies are born and live where they are not wanted - where they will be neglected - where they have no chance. I would have loved my baby so - and cared for it tenderly - and tried to give her every chance for good. And yet I wasn't allowed to keep her.” - (Anne’s House of Dreams)

Anne’s recovery from this tragedy isn’t rushed – it is slow and gradual. There is also acknowledgement of the physical toll her trials have taken. And when she does get to hold a living child – her joy and adoration is similarly familiar to me.

It’s clear this first birth – and loss – impacts not just Anne and Gilbert but those surrounding them and loving them – Marilla and Susan, Miss Cornelia and Leslie, Captain Jim and the countless friends only a letter away who send presents of baby clothes. It also shapes Anne as she moves forward in her mothering journey. There is an added understanding of how precious is each little life entrusted to us, and how little we can take it for granted. Anne savours the tender moments of her children growing up, with an acute awareness of how easily it can be taken away.

She stooped repentantly, gloatingly over them. They were still hers . . . wholly hers, to mother and love and protect. They still came to her with ehvery love and grief of their little hearts. For a few years longer they would be hers . . . and then? Anne shivered. Motherhood was very sweet . . . but very terrible.

"I wonder what life holds for them," she whispered.” – (Anne of Ingleside).

I love that as her family grows up, we get to see Anne, who we have seen mature and change over so many books, through the eyes of her children. For them, she is the loving centre of their little worlds. Anne, who was alone and friendless until she arrived at Green Gables, mothers her little tribe the way all children deserve to be loved and cherished – and in doing so is in some ways mothering the unloved little girl she once was.

Anne’s children frequently comment that no one has a mother as kind and understanding as their own – and we see their acts of devotion in the sacrifices they make to bring her gifts and flowers, and their concern and fright when she is taken ill. Anne knows that to love someone dearly is to be prepared for grief, and through their love for their own mother her children are taught this lesson.

Part of why these books are so popular is that they are so good at showing the light and dark of humanity. Anne starts as a little girl who has endured neglect and loneliness, but still tries to make her world bright and cheerful through her imagination. There are plenty of hints and outright depictions of life’s many possible tragedies throughout the series, but also plenty of humour, of wonderful joys and beautiful things. It is the same with Montgomery’s depiction of motherhood.

There are plenty of charming vignettes of Anne’s life with her children – tending the garden, decorating the Christmas tree, laughing over meals together. There are the real heartfelt moments when Anne can console or guide her children through the difficulties they face. Anne’s joy and love for her home and her family overflows in so many aspects of these books. In some ways, it makes the price she pays for that love all the more terrible. But instead, we should see that those moments, that joy, is what makes the price worth it.

There are three deaths throughout the series that show us how love, particularly parental love, and grief, are deeply intertwined through Anne’s story. We have already looked at the middle death, the loss of little Joyce so soon after birth.

But it is also significantly formative for Anne that the first person to love her – really love her – and the first safe parental figure she has is Matthew Cuthbert, who is also the first significant loss Anne experiences (her parents passed when she was too young to be aware of what was happening). Matthew is the first adult to see Anne as a wonderful and complex little human and extends the parental protection of taking her into his house, seeing her clothed and fed. Matthew also in delights in Anne, giving her the first beautiful dress she owns, and for a shy man is extraordinarily forthcoming in stating his pride and joy in Anne as she grows and matures.

Matthew’s loss is the first lesson for Anne that to love is to be vulnerable to loss, and that we all must decide if the risk of loving is worth it. Matthew gives Anne the gift of being known and loved – and not even his death can take that away. Throughout the books Anne loves wholeheartedly – her friends, her students, her classmates and eventually Gilbert, her husband. Anne has weighed the cost and decided that loving and being loved is worth the risk.

We’ve already explored how Joyce’s loss makes the process of mothering and treasuring her children more precious for Anne. But the last loss, the final death of the series, is perhaps the hardest to take, and it certainly is the hardest for Anne.

Rilla of Ingleside, the chronological last story written by L.M.M. Montgomery (though it was written and published more than a decade before Anne of Ingleside and Anne of Windy Willows) takes place during World War One. It focuses on Rilla, the youngest daughter of Anne, and her experiences during the war. Anne is a very big presence in the book, and it’s Anne who is enduring loss yet again.

Walter, Anne’s second son and the brother who Rilla is closest to, goes to fight in the war and does not come back. His death is heartbreaking – a young man, full of life, an aspiring poet – gone through cruel violence. Walter’s death is worse because we know it is not isolated, but one of many, many, many similar losses on those muddy fields in France.

Anne is laid low by her shock and grief, taking weeks to recover. I again appreciate that the physical toll of grief is shown here. Rilla cries and storms and rages, but continues on – as we all must, even in the face of overwhelming loss. Her grief is described as transforming from tears into ‘a little patient ache that was to be in her heart until she died.’

Though this talks about the grief of a sister for a brother, this phrase helps me visualise my own ongoing grief of the babies I have lost. There are moments of storms and tears, but even when they pass, there will always be an ache in my heart, knowing that they should be there and are not.

Anne’s final loss ages her in a way her other losses didn’t. To lose her son in such circumstances, after the early dangers of childhood illnesses and accidents have passed, is a cruel thing. But there is risk in loving, especially in loving with the kind of burning, fierce maternal love so well depicted through this series.

The sadness that comes with loss comes because the thing, the person or relationship we have lost was so special, brought such happiness and gladness to life. You cannot compare losses, and I would never presume to. But Anne’s grief over little Joyce is the grief of a life denied, a lifetime of those moments never lived. Her grief over Walter is a completely different thing, having lived a life of mothering him. She knows in a tangible way what she has lost. She knows who Walter grew up to be, all his flaws and strengths and beauty. But she still got that time with him – she got to know the wonderous little soul entrusted to her, to rock him to sleep and teach him to pray. She was his mother.

I resonate with Anne’s grief over a life denied. My two babes, lost before birth, never lived a life I grieve. I never got to know their personalities and shapes and quirks to miss when they left. But the sharp taste of grief has made me someone who finds my daughter all the more precious. Each moment I have with her, every time she lays her head on my shoulder for a cuddle, is a treasure. Because I know how easily it can be taken away. I would never regret loving my daughter, as I never regret loving the two little lives that never breathed. There’s pain, yes, but the pain comes from love.

I am sure if we asked Anne, was loving worth the pain of loss, she would answer wholeheartedly yes. Loving Matthew, loving little baby Joyce, and loving and mothering Walter brought richness and colour and sparkle to Anne’s life. The pain of grief reflects the joy of love.

Beccy Sharley writes the substack newsletter

Searching For Grace

where she rambles about faith, books, parenting, life and whatever historical topic she is currently obsessed with. You can also find out more about her other work at sharley.net.