Letters to Mom
The message that no action goes unnoticed or unaccounted for and that communication is essential to a healthy family and society.
The message that no action goes unnoticed or unaccounted for and that communication is essential to a healthy family and society.
\”My childhood skidded to a stop on a Tuesday afternoon in the middle of my 15th year, with my mother\’s first mammogram results,\” writes Hope Edelman in her moving new book, \”Motherless Mothers: How Mother Loss Shapes the Parents We Become\” (Harper Collins). For Edelman, her mother\’s illness and subsequent death from cancer two years later in 1981 were the beginning of a journey of loss, self-exploration and eventual emotional redemption that has spanned nearly a quarter-century and spawned three well-received books on the subject.
The pain and anguish of infertility has been passed down from matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel to women today. But while our traditions have given us words to say and ways to act during other lifecycle events — death, birth, marriage — there is little guidance for how to help a friend or loved one deal with the loss of a pregnancy or the pain and despair of infertility.
While the Shlepperellas have earned good reviews for their humor, their beginnings weren\’t so funny. Back in 1991, a freaked-out Schilling-Gould, then the mother of 8-month-old twins, attended a mom\’s support group after learning she was expecting her third child.