Her mum had just died of a heart attack in the bathroom of her childhood home in Murchison, where her parents had remained when she moved to Melbourne.
With legs “like jelly”, the then 32-year-old made her way out of the store before she collapsed and wailed.
She wanted the earth to open and swallow her up.
“I didn’t want to be around anymore. It was the worst possible news I’ve ever had in my whole life,” Jess said.
“My mum was my best friend.”
As an only child, Jess didn’t have siblings to lean on in shared grief.
Thankfully her partner at the time was a supportive soul, who “dropped everything” to help.
He picked her up, took her home to gather some things and then drove her back to Murchison and stayed with her for the next week as she, her father and her aunty navigated the early days of their loss and organising the funeral.
When Jess returned to the city, life looked different.
She recalls the first year after her 60-year-old mother’s death the hardest she’s experienced.
“For the first few months, when I went back to work, I was just crying in the car,” Jess said.
“You know, I’d have to park my car out the front of the house and just cry and sob like a fool before I actually went inside, cause I just had to get it all out before I went and saw my partner.”
She remembers the sadness catching her at the most unpredictable of times.
“I’d be at the supermarket and I'd see this cheese that Mum liked and start like blubbering, in the middle of Aldi,” she said.
As she moved through the stages of her grief, eventually the periods of tear-filled inactivity gave way to a feisty pursuit of new pastimes.
Jess decided that if life could be swept away from her at any moment, she’d best get busy doing “all the things”.
“I think that kept me out of my grief for a bit, but that was probably no good for me because I didn’t actually deal with it properly at the time,” she said.
“And years later I found myself in a bit of a hole, a bit lost, just not knowing how to deal with my emotions because how I used to deal with my emotions was by talking to my mum.”
Jess began an online search to find a group “that was like AA (Alcoholics Anonymous), but for people whose mums had died.”
That’s when she found the Motherless Daughters Australia community, an organisation that was founded by Eloise Baker and Danielle Snelling in 2018 when the pair met after both losing their mothers.
Jess joined the Facebook group and private peer support group they offered.
“It's a place for people who have lost their mums to go to and, I guess, post and share stories and memories and experiences about their mums and sometimes even just funny things that they remember, or signs that she's still around,” Jess said.
Co-founder Danielle said while the community was growing stronger, with more than 50,000 motherless daughters having joined, it was still only a fraction of the 3.9 million daughters who are living without their mothers in Australia.
“We’re so bad at grief as a culture and country, that’s why this is important and so unique,” she said.
“We are currently trying to expand out into regional and rural areas, especially leading up to Christmas, so people know they can be supported.”
The website includes information, education and a resource hub.
It’s primarily to support daughters without mothers, but there are resources for everybody on what to say to people who’ve lost their mums, how to support them and how not to shy away from the topic because it feels too sensitive.
The organisation also hosts events, such as high teas and localised community catch-ups, which were the reason Jess was in Shepparton this month; to host a dinner and a lunch with some local motherless daughters.
“Just knowing that you're around people who have lost the same person in their life as you have and knowing that you're not the only one,” Jess said.
“You know, yes, it's not fair, and, and, yes, it's sh*t, and, you know, she should still be here.
“I think, what’s most helpful is just sharing stories and if you’re catching up with other motherless daughters, and all of a sudden you’re crying because you saw something across the room that reminded you of your mum, they just get it.”
Listen to the full podcast interview with Jess here.
For more information on Motherless Daughters Australia, visit the website or follow the Facebook page.
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