Recently, I was browsing through the earliest posts from this blog, which began in January, 2012.
The initial guest posts were from a few of the authors of the first book, Mother-Daughter Memories: Love Revealed. I had invited them to share from their personal experiences of writing for this book.
Each described discoveries made in the process of birthing the essay about memories of her own mother. Their posts are juicy little stories in their own right. The “Love Revealed” requirement in writing for the Love Revealed series is that love shows up somewhere along the way – whether in the actions or reactions of anyone as the original experiences were happening, or over the time span that has elapsed since then, or in the process of writing about what took place. I always remind the authors that their true stories need not have a happily-ever-after-ending.
The following was posted by Sheila Foster on January 27, 2012. “In My Mother’s Kitchen” is her story in Mother-Daughter Memories: Love Revealed.
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Post title: A Writer on Writing & an Invitation to Respond to the Stories
In writing each morning from 5-7 AM (I really did!), my heart kept breaking open as I re-membered the heartbreak of being a child. I allowed myself the gift of the grief, the tears of sadness, as well as tears of joy in feeling and knowing now, without any doubt, the love I have for my mother, and hers for me. It felt cleansing and pure to get down to bare bones and marrow by telling my story in the present tense, rather than past. It made it much easier to feel my 3-year-old self and wrap my arms around that little me in those re-membered traumatic and joyous moments, as well as feel the healing and grace that was happening as I wrote.
It was a deep and exquisitely heart-opening process for me to re-member those events, taking the broken shards and arranging them in such a way that the underlying reality of wholeness and Grace could be directly experienced. Some of the readers spoke to me about how they could feel in their own hearts what I wrote about, and that touched me deeply. I am very appreciative for the beautiful opportunity that Dena made available to us via this precious invitation to tell a story about mothers and daughters.
We, as writers, are very interested in your responses, in how you were affected by what you read. What leapt out at you? Did any of the stories bring back memories of you and your mother? What emotions were evoked? What touched your heart? Did anything make you uncomfortable, or stir up grief or unhealed wounds with your mother? Were you inspired in any way?
I wholeheartedly invite you to consider writing your own mother/daughter story, even if you are the only one who reads it. The writing itself is clarifying and healing, and then having it witnessed, even by only one other person, makes a big difference. Very beautiful… As a mother myself of adult children, I can say that I think being a mother could be one of the most difficult paths, as well as the path of Big Unconditional Love.
Blessings to all Mothers and Daughters
by Sheila Foster
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To read Comments made at the time of the original post, click here.
Sheila Foster’s work also appears in “Trampled by Elephants” in the newest book, Living Through Grief: Love Revealed.
Biographies for all of our Love Revealed authors are on our site, www.LoveRevealedStories.com.
Blissings, Dena
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