Motherless Daughters - Diane Marie Ford

Nearly twenty years ago a woman by the name of Hope touched my life and changed it for the better, without even knowing she had done so. We were brought together by a common denominator at a time in my life when grief ruled supreme. I felt as if I had been fractured into a million pieces.

Adelman is Hope’s last name and her newly published book, Motherless Daughters, was given to me as a gift days after my mother’s death.

I devoured the pages as if I were eating a bag of potato chips. The more I read, the less I felt alone. The deeper I dove, the closer to the surface of my reality I rose. You see, I had just become a motherless daughter.

Hope had a way of making me feel as if I had been lovingly indoctrinated into a sacred tribe, whose only requirement for membership was to have ‘lost’ your mother.

I began to feel less alone and more a part of something bigger than myself. I began to shed my feelings of ‘woe is me’ while being adorned with a sense of community. Adorned by a sense of empathy and understanding. Over time I was able to assimilate this new reality into my everyday life.

I was experiencing a rite of passage into a sisterhood comprised of women, daughters who really ‘got me’ – they understood my pain and they resonated with my loss. I became more able to move through my grief with less struggle, and with more grace. Through this rite of passage I began to lighten up. My life was becoming warmer and brighter, and less all consuming.

The essence of my mother began to come through loud and clear. Her spirit made itself known and recommended I pay attention. Little by little I began to sit straighter, walk taller, hear better and live brighter. I was being guided, counseled, nurtured and loved by my mother, in spirit. My odyssey had begun. As I tuned into the messages of my mother and her friends who reside in the spirit realm, possibilities became unlimited.

Nearly two decades have passed since I devoured that book. Many a mother has ‘come through’ to me seeking connection with her daughter and many a daughter has ‘come through’ to me seeking a connection with her mother.

The gift Hope brought to me nearly twenty years ago keeps on giving on so many levels. Though I remain to this day a card carrying member of the tribe of motherless daughters, in the physical sense, I too, am a card carrying member of the tribe of mothers and daughters in spirit. We connect and get together on a regular basis. We share and are ‘here’ for one another. And it is heavenly.