Dear Readers, Dear Friends, Dear Sisters of the Heart, Yesterday afternoon I attended a Motherless Daughters Day luncheon in Costa Mesa, California, sponsored by Motherless Daughters of Orange County. Every May for 20 years this group has created a space for local women to honor mothers who are no longer living. The week before, I sat with 250 motherless women at the “Missing Our Mothers, Daughters Remember” luncheon in Atlanta sponsored by VITAS Healthcare. All told, there were dozens of … [Read more...]

  Twenty-one years ago, a small group of motherless daughters in New York City organized the first Motherless Daughters Day Luncheon in Manhattan and about a dozen other cities nationwide. We believed that mothers who were no longer living also deserved to be honored on Mother's Day weekend. Since then, women in dozens of cities worldwide have created their own events around Mother's Day where daughters can share memories and stories. Many of them include the original event's "Circle of … [Read more...]

The first Motherless Daughters Retreat, which I'll be co-facilitating with the wonderful author and therapist Claire Bidwell Smith (The Rules of Inheritance, After This), will take place from August 18-21, 2016, in Ojai, California. This three-day, three-night retreat is for adult women who were 25 and younger when their mothers died. We're very, very excited about guiding women through a series of discussions and exercises about the long-term effects of early mother loss, and opportunities for … [Read more...]

Dear Friends, It’s a cloudy yet bright day in Los Angeles, the kind of day where it feels like anything can happen – a light drizzle can begin, the temperature can drop without warning, or a shaft of sun might break through and bathe us all in light. The kind of day that reminds you that whatever you're seeing right now, whatever seems fixed and immutable, can change. Or maybe I’m just in a funky mood because of what happened this morning. I'll explain. 7 a.m., Los Angeles time, and … [Read more...]

Our mission today? To take 21 kids shopping in downtown Cuzco for warm jackets, sweaters, underwear, socks, pants, and shoes. Divide and Conquer was the only viable plan. We took off in groups of five women and five or six kids with one Spanish speaker (that would be me, which doesn't say much) leading each pack. The girls paired with me were fourteen-year old Mariaflore and twelve-year-old Ada and we took off in our pack of seven to do damage to the Cuzco market. Shopping with teens and … [Read more...]

I've been having some technical difficulties here with the internet so had to skip posting last night -- having spent nearly an hour trying to hold on to a Skype connection so I could talk to my husband at the end of the day. Finally in exasperation, I reminded him, "Well, I'm in Peru, after all," and we laughed. It's so easy, when you're wired (sort of) and have access to Skype (sort of) to forget that you're hooked into Third World services nonetheless. Anyway. Day Four of the Motherless … [Read more...]

Seventeen of our eighteen trekkers are now in Cuzco, with Joanna doing a circuitous route of the globe thanks to KLM. She's thankfully scheduled to arrive first thing in the morning and then our group will be complete. It's hard to explain what it's like to be surrounded by so many women with a shared experience, all united with a common purpose, and who've made such sacrifices and overcome so many obstacles to gather together in Cuzco, Peru. This afternoon, after Allison, Katie and I came back … [Read more...]

I discovered how long it takes to start feeling symptoms of altitude sickness, and the answer is about twelve hours. At 5:30 a.m. I woke up with such a killer of a headache all I could manage to do was drink a glass of water and stick my head back under the pillow. When I woke again at 7:30 I was marginally better, and then even better after drinking more water and taking two Nurofen Flash (thank you UK supermarkets for selling it over the counter). I think I'm through the worst of it by 11:30 … [Read more...]

Despite my misgivings about booking an itinerary that went Los Angeles - Panama City - Lima - Cuzco, all three flights departed perfectly on time and I could not have hoped for smoother travels. The Panama City airport had stellar free wifi and Lima's what seemed like an excessive amount of people (second only to Guatemala City in my experience of airport crowds). The taxi driver who met me at the Cuzco airport didn't speak English so we spoke the whole way to the hotel in Spanish, and I think … [Read more...]