Forever a Daughter: Reflections on Grief, Growth, and Motherless Daughters

When I was just 24, my mother died—and so much of who I was disappeared with her.

In the days that followed, someone handed me a book that would become my constant companion for the next 30 years: Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss by Hope Edelman. It gave me language for my pain, reflection for my grief, and a mirror that helped me see myself again when I was lost in the fog of loss.

This solo episode is my story—of what it means to still be a daughter, even after your mother is gone. It’s about the memory boxes she left behind, the music that still brings her close, the deep and unexpected relationship I’ve built with Katie (my dad’s wife), and how grief doesn’t end… it evolves.

If you’ve lost your mom—or someone who mothered you—this episode is a soft place to land. A reminder that you’re not alone. That your memories are sacred. That your mother’s love lives on in how you show up every day.

Whether you’re grieving, healing, parenting, or remembering—or helping someone you care for do the same—this is for you.

🎧 “Once you’re a daughter, you are always a daughter.”

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Episode Transcript

Kellie (00:06):
Welcome to The P-I-G, where we explore life, love,
loss and legacy through realconversations and meaningful
stories, with purpose, intentionand gratitude.
I'm Kellie, the older half ofthis sister-led podcast, and
today I'm with you for a shortsolo episode that's been more
than 30 years in the making.
Some stories aren't told all atonce.

(00:27):
They unfold slowly throughlived experience, through
heartbreak and healing, throughgrief and growth.
This is one of those stories, astory not just of profound loss
, but of what it means to saygoodbye to your mother far too
early in life and still find away to keep becoming the
daughter she always knew youcould be.
I was just 24 when our mom died,and in the days that followed,

(00:51):
someone I don't even rememberwho placed a book in my hands
that would become a lifelongcompanion.
It was Motherless Daughters,the Legacy of Loss, by Hope
Edelman.
In its pages, I felt seen,understood.
I didn't yet know how to grievethe death of the person who had
given me life, but this bookhelped me begin, because

(01:12):
Motherless Daughters isn't justa book about loss.
It's a mirror, a map, a voicethat offered language for my
pain and light for the pathahead.
Over the years, I've gifted thebook to so many others, to
women walking the same path, thesame winding road, and today I
want to share what it's taughtme, not just about grief, but

(01:41):
about love, resilience.
And she will tell you that herlife is irrevocably altered,
that this one fact foreverchanges who she is and who she

(02:04):
will be.
Gone is the caregiver, teacher,adversary, role model and guide
to being a woman.
Often whole parts of themother's role transfer to the
daughter.
Grieving can be cut short, cutoff or dismissed in order to
keep the family going.
A daughter's relationship withher father and siblings changes,

(02:25):
and secondary losses can beoverwhelming.
As adults, a variety ofrelationship problems can arise
as a result of this primaryabandonment.
Transition times in a woman'slife—leaving home, getting
married, having a child—bring upyearnings for guidance or
company, and there is oftennowhere to turn.

(02:46):
There was never a book thatexamined the profound effects of
this loss on a woman's identity, personality, family and life
choices, both immediate and asher life goes on.
Until now, Hope Edelman losther mother when she was 17.
After searching for the book shecouldn't find, she decided to

(03:08):
write it herself.
She traveled the country,speaking to motherless women of
all ages, conducting originalresearch, hosting focus groups
and consulting withpsychiatrists, psychologists and
experts in grieving.
What she found was a country ofwomen anxious to share their
common experience.
A manual for navigating thelandscape of loss, motherless

(03:31):
Daughters offers powerfulinsights, not just for women,
but for anyone who surrounds andsupports her fathers, siblings,
friends, co-workers andcommunity, through honest
reflection and shared experience.
It reveals both the profoundchallenges and unexpected
opportunities that arise when adaughter says goodbye to her

(03:54):
mother.
It's a book about grief, yes,but also about healing, identity
, resilience and the enduringlove that continues long after
goodbye.
At the time Motherless Daughterscame into my life, I had
already faced so much loss, somuch abandonment in my young

(04:16):
life, but I'd never feltsomething so complete as losing
my own mom.
We had always been close.
She was my protector, myteacher, my guide, and even when
our roles shifted when, duringher first cancer diagnosis
especially, I became hercaretaker, and even Erin's

(04:39):
caretaker, I never doubted mymother's love for me, not once.
I never doubted my mother'slove for me, not once Ever.
In her absence, September 12,1994, I felt unmoored, but In
the pages of MotherlessDaughters I found something I
hadn't found yet anywhere else away to start making sense of

(05:03):
the grief that was left behind.
One of the lines I come back toover and over again is this:
"there is no substitute for amother's love, but there are
ways to let that love live on.
I want to read a few excerptsand stories that are included in

(05:24):
this book, stories from lettersfrom daughters who, just like
me, just like Erin, were alsocaught in the webs of their
grief in the days, weeks, monthsand even the years following

the loss of their moms (05:38):
"No one in your life will ever love you
as your mother does.
There is no love as pure, asunconditional and as strong as a
mother's love.
When my mother died, I didn'tjust lose her.
I lost the part of myself thatshe reflected back to me.

(05:58):
I've spent years trying to findthat reflection again in
sisters, mentors, even strangerswho remind me of her.
Sometimes I see it in the way Ibrush my daughter's hair or the
way I move through a crowdedroom.
She's gone and yet she'severywhere.
How do you ever get over it?

(06:21):
Do you ever get on with yourlife?
Yes, you do get on with yourlife, but it is always a part of
your life and it does affecteverything you do.
From a woman in Lakewood, Ohio,"I have reflected on the loss of
my mother and tried to distancemyself somewhat from the grief
by trying to gauge its effect onmy life as objectively as

(06:43):
possible.
This is effective when I am inmy conscious self but, like most
of us, a good deal of my timeis spent in unconscious thought
and choice.
And there the grieving14-year-old reigns.
And there the grieving14-year-old reigns, and from a
daughter in Texas.
I truly believe that the deathof my mother has made me what I

(07:03):
am today.
I am a survivor, mentallystrong, determined,
strong-willed, self-reliant andindependent.
I also keep most of my pain,anger and feelings inside.
I refuse to be vulnerable toanyone.
The only people who see thatmore emotional or softer side
are my children.
That too is because of mymother.

(07:27):
As Hope herself says aboutgrieving as an adult daughter,
grief doesn't end, it evolves.
We don't just get over the lossof a mother.
We grow around it, we carry itand, if we're lucky, we learn to
let it shape us into somethingsofter, something stronger.
In episode number nine, you metKatie, our dad's wife and the

(07:51):
woman who gently walked into ourlives after our mom was gone.
She never tried to replace her,she just showed up patiently
and lovingly, and over the past27 years we've worked to build a
relationship that is rooted inmutual respect, love and trust.
It hasn't always been easy, ithasn't always been seamless and

(08:14):
it Motherless daughters help meunderstand that letting someone
else into that sacred mom spacedoesn't erase the past.
It actually helps heal it,because once you're a daughter,
you're always a daughter.
That role does not vanish withloss.
It simply transforms and inKatie's case that transformation

(08:40):
became a gift we never expected, but to this day is a gift I
treasure.
Every single moment of myliving Hope stated in the book
in a reflection on letting newmothering love in Many women who
lose their mothers early inlife never allow another woman

(09:01):
into that space.
But those who do often findthat their grief doesn't deepen,
it lightens, because love inits many forms multiplies, it
does not divide.
In episodes 10 and 11, you alsomet our dad, Pop, the keeper of
the boxes.
Pop actually adopted Erin and I.

(09:25):
I was adopted when I waslegally 18 years old, so I
graduated from high school withone name and went to college
with a new name, a new driver'slicense, a new social security
card and even a new birthcertificate.
Our biological father hadstepped away.
He'd left our lives.
That was his choice.
But Pop never once treated usas anything less than his own,

(09:51):
even and especially after theloss of his own daughter, Laurie
, in a tragic car accident.
When our mom knew she wouldn'tbe here for our biggest
milestones graduations, weddings, the birth of our children he
delivered, at her request, theboxes with handwritten notes and
the carefully curated gifts shehad chosen to leave behind.

(10:15):
Through him, she actually keptmothering us even long after she
was gone, and through us we nowcontinue that legacy.
In talking with Katie, we heardhow she carried forward a
mother's heart into her ownparenting.
And with Pop we learned how theintentional love for our mom

(10:38):
through the boxes lived on evenafter she was gone and created a
space where she could bepresent in our lives.
And the excerpts I sharedearlier shows us that it all
comes full circle.
Losing a mom does changeeverything, but it also leaves a
sacred inheritance of presence,care and memory that lives on

(11:04):
in our heartbeat, in oureveryday lives.

(11:32):
For me, music has always been athread connecting me deeply to
my mom.
After all, I was just fouryears old when she started me in
piano lessons, and I can't evenbegin to count the number of
times that I sat down at thepiano to play and she simply sat

(11:52):
with her eyes closed andlistened.
She attended every recital, andit was her love for my fingers
on the keys that brought both ofus so much joy.
From our days listening topublic radio, through her work
in founding KPRN Public Radio inWestern Colorado, to

(12:14):
spearheading the Colorado PublicRadio Network and her
involvement with National PublicRadio, to that final Sunday, we
spent laying in bed side byside, listening to Cristofori's
Dream by David Lanz, over andover and over again, knowing
though never saying out loudwhat we both knew that we were

(12:37):
nearing the end of our timetogether.
I never expected that thatwould be the last time that I
saw her, and I never expectedthat the last time I heard her
voice would be that evening whenshe called to give me my last
lecture after I had shared withher that I planned to take a
leave of absence to spend whatremaining days we had together.

(13:00):
We hung up the phone that nightand I went to sleep, and the
next phone call I received wasin the morning that she had
turned herself over in bed afterstaying up and talking to our
dad all night long and seeingone last friend for a final
goodbye in the morning,surrounded herself with all of

(13:21):
her beautiful fluffy pillows andtook her last breath.
But even now, when my fingerstouch the piano keys, she's with
me.
And in Dr Matthew Arau's episodewe learn that music is more
than a memory.
It's actually medicine.
It's a bridge between what wasand what still is.

(13:45):
It's created in silence.
Music gives a voice to griefwhen words fall short, and music
is something I know I've leanedinto in my life to not just
help me process grief but togive me a pathway to healing and
to hope.
Motherless Daughters reminds usthat the absence of a mother

(14:08):
reshapes everything, but in thatreshaping there is growth.
Today I am a mother, astepmother, a grandmother, and
in every role I carry her withme, in how I nurture and how I
listen and in all the ways thatI love.
This isn't an episode justabout grief.

(14:29):
It's about what it means tokeep loving even in the absence.
It's about remaining a daughterforever, because, again, once
you're a daughter, you arealways a daughter.
That never ends.
So if this episode reminded youof your mother or someone who

(14:52):
stepped into that space when youneeded them most.
Be purposeful, Reach out, saythank you, express your
gratitude or, if you need it,just be still in the memory
Because, as we've shared sooften in this podcast, legacy
isn't just about what we leavebehind.

(15:13):
It's how we love, it's how welisten and it's how we show up
each and every day, and it's howwe carry those who shaped us
into every step of the life wekeep building.
As a final note of gratitude toHope, thank you for the
language, for the light and forthe mirror you gave me all those

(15:36):
years ago.
And to every woman who's walkedthis road, know this you are
not, you will never be alone.
Your mother will always, alwaysbe with you.
Hearing the stories of othershelps us create a more

(16:18):
meaningful connection to our own.
We hope today's conversationoffered you insight,
encouragement or even just amoment to pause and reflect on
the story you're living and thelegacy you're creating.

The Sisters (16:27):
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(16:48):
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Thanks for being on thisjourney with us, until next time

(17:09):
.
Hogs and kisses everyone.