The year after a major loss is invariably a Year of Firsts. All of the usual dates and holidays keep coming around on the calendar -- except this year they’ve all changed. Someone essential is missing. Facing a first birthday, first Mother’s Day, first anniversary, first Thanksgiving and Christmas without that person can feel all kinds of wrong. Sometimes it sucks up all the mental energy we can gather, just to make it through this Year of Firsts. It can feel like we’re living in an alternate … [Read more...]

Fifty eight families (and counting) are mourning the senseless deaths of their loved ones today. More than 500 are injured. And up to 20,000 could be struggling for a long time from the trauma of having been part of the most deadly mass shooting in U.S. history. That's all kinds of messed up, America. If you follow me online, or know me in person, you probably know my position on gun ownership. I don't believe that weapons designed for the sole purpose of killing other humans have any … [Read more...]

Twenty five years ago, 92 women were interviewed for the first edition of Motherless Daughters and shared their stories with honesty and courage, some of them speaking about mother loss for the first time. While working on my next book -- my eighth, this one about the lifelong effects of early loss -- I've found that very few studies exist about grief over the lifespan. Hardly any at all. That's probably because it's hard to keep track of people for that long, and also because a long-term … [Read more...]

Journalist and author Allison Gilbert has become a prominent voice in the field of bereavement writing, helping readers actively remember and honor their lost loved ones. Having lost both of her parents by age 31, she went on to write the insightful books Always Too Soon: Voices of Support for Those Who Have Lost Both Parents and Parentless Parents: How the Loss of Our Mothers and Fathers Impacts the Way We Raise Our Children. Her newest book, Passed and Present: Keeping Memories of Loved … [Read more...]

Dear Readers, Dear Friends, Dear Sisters of the Heart, It’s a sunny afternoon in Southern California, the Friday before Mother’s Day. I’m sitting at my kitchen table while the palm trees on my driveway gently sway in the breeze and the distant sound of a weed-whacker drones, cutting brush in advance of fire season in our canyon. Sunrise, fire season, Mother’s Day: just a few of the many events I can, blessedly, count on with regularity. This will be my 36th Mother’s Day without my … [Read more...]

Mother's Day was started by a motherless daughter in the early 20th century, yet soon became a holiday for celebrating the day with mothers who are living. So what's a daughter to do when she wants to revive the founder's original intent -- to honor a mother who has died? Twenty one years ago, in New York City, a group of women decided to create a luncheon for motherless daughters, to give them a place to talk about their mothers and say their names out loud. A handful of other cities held … [Read more...]

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...]