Motherless Daughters-The Legacy of Loss
"I am fooling only myself when i say my mother exists now only in the photograph on my bulletin board or in the outline of my hand or in the armful of memories i still hold tight. She lives in beneath everything i do.. Her presence influenced who i was, and her absence influences who i am. Our lives are shaped as much by those who leave us as they are by those who stay. Loss is our legacy. Insight is our gift. Memory is our guide. -[Epilogue, page 283]. This is literally the best way of summing up what this book is all about, and a lasting impression, is the fact that we can be encouraged by those women and young women who went through the majority of their lives without their mothers, and had to learn how to be strong and take the information and advice their mothers did give them as they went out into the world.