Motherless Daughters : The Legacy of Loss
Author: Hope Edelman
List Price: $15.95
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ISBN: 0385314388
Publisher: Delta (01 April, 1995)
Sales Rank: 8,148
Average Customer Rating: 4.55 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 5 out of 5
An orphan's homecoming
From the moment I read the first few pages, I knew I had hit upon the most familiar, yet previously unwritten, words I had read to date. In a world where only 5 percent of children lose a parent while they are young, I had felt completely, utterly alone. No one I knew could understand my pain; I learned early not to burden anyone with it. The book takes the reader inside the mind and heart of an author who lost her mother at a crucial time (what time isn't?). When another has experienced the same loss, it is as though the words she reads are her own. Slowly, tenderly, she unravels the stories of other women who were orphaned (not meaning 'without parents' but technically defined as 'motherless') at a young age and gives them life. She beautifully and bravely takes the reader through her worst fears - having children, attaching to another person, dying at the same age as her mother. Hope Edelman, through a series of stories about women like me, has written my story. It is a book that healed a part of me previously untouched, and allowed me to finally take my place as a woman who would survive the most profound loss any child could experience.
Rating: 5 out of 5
A Vital Read for Every Motherless Daughter
I read this book during the most raw period of my grieving - two weeks after my mother passed away from a rapid three month battle with cancer in June of 2001. At a time when I felt so alone and misunderstood, I could hear Ms. Edelman's words, as well as those of the women about which she writes, speak to me. Every time I opened the book, I felt as if I were entering a support group comprised of this sorority of women who "just know." This book has helped me tremendously to understand my behavior relative to my loss, gain insight to various forms in which the loss will present itself in the future and understand the inevitable change in family dynamics. It has also taught me how to help others cope with the same loss. This last point is particularly useful to me in that it provides guidance as to how I should expect my 13 year old sister to react and how I can help ensure that she continues to grow up feeling loved, secure and well-cared for. Hope, thank you for writing such an important book.
Rating: 2 out of 5
Has some problems.
I read this book several years ago, and while I appreciated that the author had addressed the issue of the loss of mothers, I had some significant issues with the book. First, I thought she incorrectly conflated losing one's mother to death with losing one's mother to other reasons (death, illness, estrangement, etc.). I cannot be convinced that any of those other reasons could compare to having your mother die. Further, if memory serves, the author did not seem to make much distinction between losing one's mother as a child and losing one's mother as an adult. As a woman whose mother died days after my sixth birthday, I found it insulting to suggest that it is just as hard to lose your mother at, say, 30. While I know losing a parent as an adult is an extremely difficult transition (my dad died when I was 31), it is perposterous to claim it has anything like the effect of losing a parent at a young age. I was most annoyed that the author's claim that the death of a mother is harder on girls than boys. My brother was 9 when our mother died, & I know that her death was as difficult for him as it was for me. Finally, I thought there were way too many anecdotes from the author's own experience. It seemed more of an exercise in her own grief than a nuanced analysis of bereavement. That in itself would be valuable, but it should have been labled as a memoir rather than anything else. Similar Products
A Mother Loss Workbook : Healing Exercises for Daughters
Letters from Motherless Daughters : Words of Courage, Grief, and Healing
Remembering Mother, Finding Myself : A Journey of Love and Self-Acceptance
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