Motherless Children

One of our special members at Peace 4 the Missing posted this excerpt and I felt that it is so appropriate for this blog where I try to bring the readers the stories of motherless children. I seem to run across more motherless daughters than sons, probably because this blog is written from a woman's perspective, but I think it also applies to sons who have lost their mothers also.

I hope that it brings you the comfort that it brought to me and to others in our group.






An excerpt from the book entitled: "Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss".

Nature often offers metaphors more elegant than we can manufacture. In the redwood ecosystem, all seeds are contained in pods called burls, tough brown clumps that grow where the mother tree's trunk and root system meet. When the mother tree is logged, blown over, or destroyed by fire the trauma stimulates the burls' growth hormones. The seeds release, and trees sprout around her, creating the circle of daughters. The daughter trees grow by absorbing the sunlight their mother cedes to them when she dies. And they get the moisture and nutrients they need from their mother's root system, which remains intact even after her leaves die.

Although the daughters exist independently of their mother above ground, they continue to draw sustenance from her underneath. 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 on 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.


Please visit us here, take a look around, and if you feel like it is a place where you can find comfort or support from others, please join us.
http://www.peace4missing.ning.com