The Empty Nest - A Mother's Hidden Grief

The memoir is the story of my life as a mother, with an emphasis on the unspoken grief, which accompanies the process of letting go of one’s children as they grow up. As much as a mother loves her children, she must endure, at many stages of their growth, the pain of losing them. The inevitable “cutting of the ties” culminates when the day arrives for her children to leave home. For many women, this time coincides with profound personal changes of menopause and fiftieth birthdays. My own recent experience of this process prompted me to revisit my life as a mother, and to delve into the journals which I had kept since I was pregnant with my two daughters, some twenty years ago. The journals reveal the learning curves of motherhood and I was able to use this material to form both the chronological backbone of the memoir, and to expose the “heart” of the story in the touching and personal moments that I had recorded.