Margaret Edds

Margaret Edds spoke at our Women's Retreat in 2010, powerfully of the never-to-be-filled space within her that longs for a mother. Hers died when Edds was three years old, and what memories are there are shadowy. Shadowy, yet they do exist. In her case, her understanding of her mother is fleshed out by saved letters (yes, folks really did that sort of thing mid-century!) she wrote to her sisters, and to her a few others.

I resonated with her talk (and to a small degree, to her book) since my mother, too, died when I was young--though not as young as Edds. I drank up any stories aunts or cousins or even older sibs would tell about her. As an adult, my work is among the elderly. Even I can understand my immense joy in my work is in re-creating ties with women who give me a glimpse of _perhaps_ what my mother would have been like, talked like, walked like.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who has lost someone close when they were at a young age. Just as these letters brought a balm of solace to Edds, I think they did to me, also. Perhaps you, too, will find peace within these pages.… (mehr)