Customer Reviews

Kiss Me Goodnight: Stories And Poems By Women Who Were Girls When Their Mothers Died

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I have vastly enjoyed this book of writings and poems by those who have
lost their mother. It moved me to tears and then to an urgent sense that
I must share this book. We need more beautiful places to grieve our
losses. Becoming whole is a life's work, and grieving fully and sharing
stories that break the spell is part of the process. "Kiss Me Goodnight"
gives one a haven to do so and serves this sacred process."
Marilyn Zimmerman, Associate Professor, Dept. of Art and Art History,
Wayne State University, photography/installation/performance artist
and curator

Get out a new hanky or get the tissue box ready. You'll need it!

In Kiss Me Good Night the editors compiled stories from 47 women who recall their mother's death (if they remember) or how they feel now.

The women, through prose or poetry, tell about their mothers and how certain sounds, smells, tastes and things like seeing a purse (like their mother had) trigger strong emotions of loss and longing--and remembrance.

This unique sisterhood opened their hearts and souls to us, and make us appreciate our mom more--if she's alive, or relieved we were not a young child when she left this earth.

Many women are from an era when people did not talk about death or dying to children, and that left them confused. Many times when the mother died, young children were dispersed to relatives, raised apart, because the father could not work and cope with raising children alone.

Who do you talk to? How do you understand?

Missing their mothers as mom and role model and feeling the loss of her nurturing, these women found that talking to others, even all these years later, was therapeutic. And writing allowed them to help many others.

My most lasting word image is one woman looking through a photo album of a mom she vaguely remembers and seeing a "Kodachrome vitality." Maybe that's a reminder to us to keep family pictures updated to capture our own vitality.

Armchair Interviews says: Powerful, powerful words and the emotions they bring. Kiss Me Goodnight is for those women who have already lost their mother--and those who cannot even bear to think about that happening to them.

Kiss Me Goodnight is an anthology of stories, poems, and essays by various women, all of who experienced the loss of their mothers at an early age - to accidents, suicide, cancer, or murder. The pages recount vivid and wistful memories, taking the bad and the good, sweetness and pain. Black-and-white photographs of the authors and their mothers illustrate this profoundly powerful and moving testimony, which embraces memory as the first step to healing. "Mother's Motto: It Was Just Meant to Be": Oh, Mother, do not say / it was meant to be. // Once more it is Easter / and you are not here. // My heart still shrinks / when I see the empty rocker // face the kitchen silence / hear only a faint echo // of your laughter as we chopped / hazelnuts and golden raisins // to knead into the risen dough / for the humped-back panetone. // The dogwood tree, heavy with blossoms / still wears the yellow and blue ribbons // tied around its trunk in remembrance / of that spring's shattered promise. // The steps where you fell, split / your bones, scarred my life, have memories // hard as the dried blood halo around / your head when I found you. // Oh Mother, do not say / it was just meant to be.

This book is a touching collection of poetry and personal stories that will move any reader. Through these women's specific stories, we get to our own personal feelings; the feelings are universal. Although my mother lived till she was 96, I can relate to the depth of emotion expressed by the writers, the poignancy of their observations, the sweetness or anger or loneliness of their images. A non-Catholic, I am deeply moved by Ann Murphy O'Fallon's essay, "Lilacs." She tells how it was when she was nine and the priest came to give her mother Extreme Unction, and they had to dress up for him. Her 13-year-old sister tells her, "It's because she is dying, don't you know anything?" Joanne Kelley ends her poem, "Missing," with the lines, "Imagine a winter so hard that no birds survive and nothing moves in the ice." Cindy Washabaugh writes in her poem, "For Pam, Who Can't Remember," "Grandma stood at the stove crying in the same small voice she laughed in, making Campbell's soup for everyone at 8:45 in the morning because, she said, soup makes you feel better."

Reading this book has made me appreciate more than ever how fortunate I am to still have my own mother. The women who wrote poems and stories for "Kiss Me Goodnight" are all very different, yet all share the same early loss. Their contributions are beautifully written, moving, sometimes funny, and eye-opening. Moms tend to be taken for granted by those who have them, but the women collected here didn't have that luxury. It's fascinating to peek into their lives and see how each reacted to the unimaginable.

Such a brave and often amazing collection--in these never sentimental, always eloquent poems and essays, daughters tell it like it is to have lost the most important person in your young life. And I'm grateful that before each writer speaks, the editors tell me in what way and how old the daughter was when her mother died. In a perfect world, a mother should live long enough to be a comfort and then a vexation and ultimately the wise (or unwise) woman she always was. These women had to make that journey all by themselves. It is a privilege to hear how they did it.

For anyone who has experienced the loss of their mother at a young age -- a very important reminder that grief is not always a bad thing...