Teaching decisions

I was thinking of something I could do with my kids at school involving Mother's Day. The more I thought about it, the more I thought of the few students I have who don't have mothers in their homes. There is a certain degree of angst around certain holidays when those students realize their mom is not a part of their life, like other students. Some of them know their mothers walked out on them purposefully. For some of them, Mom is in jail somewhere. How can I do something that would remind them of this? It is not like I can even have them do a project for "fill-in-the-blank:" aka the women in their lives who may not be their mothers, but who act as their guardians or caretakers (grandma, aunt, etc.). This does little to ease the fact that Mom/Mother is someone who has NEVER taken care of them. As teachers, many of us have students whose only positive female influence is US. It's a humbling thought, and it's downright awful.