Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (JMI - York University)

Vryenhoek
					, Leslie

260    Volume 10, Number 2
Colder tonight, the moon 
just a bent
gold blade caught
in a tangle of branches
and sinking.
Help her — a silent petition to hang
on that scimitar’s slash, a mother’s 
frayed wish for a fevered 
girl. More than a week before 
that moon will turn its blind eye
this way.
Blade
Leslie Vryenhoek


English

Blade

Renfro
					, Yelizaveta
					 P.

 Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering    257 
When your angry plum of a face flashed up at me for the first time, cracked 
open in a howl of rage, incensed at the sudden loss of home, your blue-black 
eyes glinting from narrow splits of skin, I felt I’d known you all along. Yet you 
were a stranger to me, your jittery newborn heft unfamiliar in my clumsy hands. 
I hardly knew you at all—we were acquainted mere minutes—when I put you 
to my breast. As you scuttled along my skin with your greedy pucker-mouth, 
this first encounter felt so old and new, like a reunion.
When you were nine days old, you were a squalling madness, struggling 
in your first grunting, screeching, spastic living. On the inside, I thrashed and 
screamed too, resisting my enslavement to you. Holding you, I watched your 
father cut a wild, overgrown yew down to the ground. Our two lives were like 
battling, tormented, hopelessly intertwined roots. And I despaired of ever 
pruning you from me. There was no end in sight.
I waited for the time when I could count your life in weeks, even months. 
Motherhood was round-the-clock trauma. The feedings and diapers were 
endless. You cried. No one slept. I cried. I had many questions. How did the 
human race endure? How did people have more than one child? How did 
they survive the first one? When would I go back to being me? You cried and 
cried; there was no end in sight.
You began life in a tight fetal curl, the petals of your consciousness shut 
to the world. I watched you open like flower, unfolding out of me and unfurl-
ing into the world, your eyes squinting open to let in light, the pink clench-
blossoms of your fists relaxing. Your bruise-colored eyes bloomed a wide sky 
blue. And you watched me. 
That first Mother’s Day, I dressed you in blue, and people thought you 
were a boy. I said to you: “I will always dress you in blue to spite the world.” 
And in response, you gave me my gift: your very first laugh, a deep, mischie-
vous burble. This was my reward for two months of mothering you. It was 
enough.
I read baby books so that I would be an expert on you. I learned many 
things. For example: at birth a baby girl has within her ovaries all the ova she 
will ever have. Like a matryoshka—a Russian nesting doll—I carried within 
me not only you but also (within you) the promise of my grandchildren, just 
Yelizaveta P. Renfro
A Letter to My Daughter 
(To Be Sent in the Future)
258    Volume 10, Number 2
as a part of me was carried deeply burrowed in the womb of my grandmother 
within the womb of my infant mother. This was one of the miracles in the 
wreckage of those first months. This—and the feel of your fist cradled within 
mine, like a ball in a socket, a joint, a perfect fit. This—and so much more.
You are three years old. We count your life in years. You ask, “When you 
were your mommy’s baby, where was I?” I don’t know how to tell you. You 
didn’t exist, and yet I think you were always in me, in fact and in spirit. For 
don’t little girls carry within them not just the promise of genetic material 
but also their own nascent motherhood, learned from being daughter to a 
mother?
“Are you happy or sad that I’m not a baby anymore?” you ask. “Happy 
and sad,” I reply. Childhood is a series of superimpositions; you supersede 
yourself, day after day. I miss the other you’s, but I don’t want them back. 
When you are eight and fourteen and twenty, I will miss you of now. I am 
writing to all of you—every person you will be. I am writing to you across 
time, my adult daughter, my stranger, my friend. 
You are the eldest child of a mother who was an eldest child of a mother 
who was an eldest child of a mother who was an eldest child. Perhaps the line 
stretches even further back. We are the first, we are girls, and we are big sis-
ters. Because you are bossy and precocious, because you resemble me, because 
I imagine being a girl again through you, probably I invest too much in you. 
Your brother, second born, a boy, doesn’t look like me; his not-ME-ness was 
apparent from the beginning. But I see you in my image, or I see myself in 
yours. No doubt this will cause us trouble down the road, as it does so many 
mothers and daughters. 
You ask, “Before you were a mommy, who were you?”
“I was just myself.” 
“But what did you do before you had me?”
“I don’t know.” 
You say, “I think you were lonely.”
And I think you are right. Back then, I would not have said that I was 
lonely. But now, imagining a life entirely without you—in which I never had 
a daughter—I feel chilled with the depth of my loneliness.
It is Mother’s Day again, my fourth as a mother. Your father has taken 
you and your brother to a nursery to give me time to write. This is his gift to 
me. Upon returning, you run in with my gift: a pot containing three flowers 
that you selected and planted yourself and a card on which you have scribbled 
a picture. I ask you what you have drawn, and you reply: “I haven’t decided 
yet.” Bless you for leaving the options open, for not forming premature judg-
ments. There are many things that aren’t decided. I am changed by you for-
ever; I continue to change. You have made me a mother forever. There is no 
end in sight. I cannot express the vastness of my love for you. It overpowers 
me. There is no end in sight. I have come far. I have so far to go. There is no 
end in sight. 
Yelizaveta P. Renfro


A Letter to My Daughter (To Be Sent in the Future)

MacDonald
					, Margaret

The Contribution of Pedagogical Documentation to Maternal Efficacy
Among Mothers of Pre-term Infants

Musgrave
					, Susan

268    Volume 10, Number 2
(i)
Sun falling on yellow cedar
and my daughter in broken sandals
climbing the steps to her father’s house,
hurt foot first, then the other.
(ii)
The moon-coloured stones 
she piled high above the tide line -
in the morning they are still there!
Even the river stealing past
in the darkest night becomes another way
for grace to slip through.
(iii)
My daughter calls for me
to climb with her, the last leaves 
yellow in the skeletal tree.
She’ll find a way, she knows,
to make those golden apples rain.
(iv)
Snowflakes melt on her face,
a lifetime passes away.
The deep muttering of rocks
Sangan River Meditations
Susan Musgrave
 Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering    269 
in the black river. Why am I
ill at ease?
(v)
From the bridge I watch
the pure moving of the bird
over the bank where my daughter
stoops to pick the blue lupins 
that have now grown wild. I see 
the raptor swoop, then change 
his mind and disappear, think
how boundless is the pure 
wind circling our lives.
Sanguan River Meditations


Sangan River Meditations

Norat
					, Gisela

Hail Mami, Full of Grace

Thacker-Magee
					, Judi

 Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering         1 
“I love you birdy bones.”
In our embrace I feel each of her delicate osteoporotic ribs press against 
mine and realize as I wrap my arms around her that they could encircle her 
quarter-way round once more. In her frailty she is like the smallest of birds. 
This term of endearment makes her smile. I ease her back into her lounge 
chair, kiss her gently on the forehead and leave after another visit. Another 
visit marked by both betrayal and celebration.
This was a good visit. All are not always so. Although mom hasn’t called 
me by name in months, she was generally present. Responsive to my questions 
and ever repetitive in hers. Today she was fully ambulatory, somewhat unsteady 
on her feet but unassisted by either walker or wheelchair. 
She was in good spirits but never is she otherwise. Mom is pleasant, 
always quietly pleasant even in the midst of confusion, apprehension, and 
paranoia. Always and ever thus so damned pleasant.  She has shrouded herself 
in pleasantness, a tightly-woven, impenetrable, black cloak behind which she 
has hidden so that I have never come to know her. 
It is now and only now as I am losing her to her frailties and dementia 
that I am finding her. There are occasional glimpses behind the dark fabric of 
niceness of a woman I have never known. The shroud is thread-bare in places 
and it is through these unravelled threads that I am discovering the essence 
of her. It is a painful process and reliant on her dependence on me. I wish it 
wasn’t so but am thankful for this gift of getting to know her if even just a 
little, even if so late in our relationship. 
“Your mother has never said a bad word about anyone,” my dad said to me in-
numerable times. An admirable quality to be sure but truth be told mom rarely 
Judi Thacker-Magee
Birdy Bones
200         Volume 10, Number 1
Judi Thacker-Magee
said a word about anyone or anything other than statements about the obvious. 
Monosyllabic comments on the weather, a television show, and the like.
An excruciatingly private person totally devoted to the physical care of 
husband, five children, and household, mom simply existed in the background 
preparing meals, cleaning, washing, and ironing. An almost invisible domestic 
performing these duties as if by rote.
She was never given to open expressions of affection.  I remember but a 
few half-hearted hugs and kisses on the cheek. No sitting-on-her-lap cuddle 
time. No being read to. No confidences shared. No problems discussed. No 
advice given. No questions asked. No voices raised. No laughter shared. No 
tears. What was most present to me was her absence. 
I have never known what her interests are; what she is fearful of; what 
angers her; what she is passionate about; what makes her sad or what gives her 
joy. I have never known her to have a friend, a hobby, a life outside the duties 
of wife and mother. All I know is that I have loved her and she has loved me. 
I don’t know how I know this but I simply do.
In caring for her, the physical closeness is so painfully personal, such an inva-
sion of her privacy that I feel I am committing the worst betrayal possible. 
Simply doing up a button on her blouse or pulling up a zipper on her sweater 
is the most intimate of acts.
 “Mom can I have a look?”  I pull down her slacks to her ankles and lower 
the waistband of her underwear to just below her buttocks. 
 “No mom I don’t see any bruises, redness or swelling and I don’t feel any 
hotness around you tailbone. Is it okay if I have the charge nurse come in to 
check this out?”
Often mom will tell me where she feels pain or discomfort rather than 
letting the staff know.  Although mom demurs without embarrassment to my 
request to investigate, for me the intimacy of these encounters is staggering. 
I remember the first time I saw her naked body.  Shortly after my father died 
I took mom to the Gwendolyn Lingerie Shop in Oakville to be fitted for new 
bras and panties. It took many attempts to persuade her to come with me. 
So busy caring for my father she had neglected the most basic necessities for 
herself … properly fitting underwear.
I don’t know when she last purchased bras or panties but clearly the 
ones she was wearing are now too large. I try to grant her as much privacy as 
possible during the fitting session discreetly asking her permission to come 
into the change room as she tries on one bra after another and a multitude of 
various underpants.
 “Is it comfortable mom? What about the straps, the elastic? Do you like 
the style, the material, the colour?”
Focusing on the logistics of this process I try desperately to down-play 
the shock of seeing my mother’s naked body for the first time in my 58 years 
 Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering         201 
Birdy Bones
as her daughter. Her privacy was the only thing she had been able to claim 
as her own in all of the years I have known her. My sense of invading it felt 
like treason.
As I slip the bra straps over her hunched shoulders her small breasts drop 
into the 32A sized-cups. I help her step into the full-brief nylon panties and 
gently pull them up her blue-veined, waif-thin legs and over her round belly 
and hips.
 “Look at this pot!” she says not disguising her disgust. “I have to lose some 
weight. I’d like to take this weight and put a handful of it on each breast,” she 
declares as she surveys her 88-pound, 86-year-old body in the full-length mirror. 
She feels her breasts are too small and her belly too big. “And just look at these 
legs. I always wanted to get these varicose veins removed. They’re disgusting.”
I am speechless as she openly reveals how she feels about her body. I never 
knew. The body I have just seen is beautiful. Her skin so soft and smooth, so 
flawless, the colour of the moon. The glorious rounded Buddha belly which 
gave me life and life to four others as well. Not a stretch mark on it, so perfect. 
Just a magnificent round orb. The legs that carried the weight of five gestating 
babies. I marvel at what her body accomplished. 
She chooses four padded bras and five pair of white nylon full-brief 
panties size small but still large enough on her to hold an incontinence pad 
for those moments when she has difficulty voiding her bladder completely. 
Mom seems both relieved that the process is over and pleased with her 
purchases.
I now realize why I have never ever seen her in a pair of shorts and only 
seen her in a bathing suit once in all the years I have known her.
The summer of 1959 at a rented cottage on Lake Rosseau. I was supposed to 
be in the boat on the way to the marina with my father, two brothers and two 
sisters but I had decided at the last minute to stay on the island. I took my book 
to the top of the hill overlooking the bay and it was from this vantage point 
that I discover her. I watch as she makes her way bare foot along the path at 
the base of the hill and onto the dock. She unties the towel from around her 
waist and lets it fall to the dock. Standing there in the sun she pauses. She 
stretches luxuriating in the warmth of the sun. I am in awe. Short in stature, 
slim in figure, I see a fit and confident woman. She is beautiful in her serenity, 
in the joy of her privacy. This is my mother as I have never known her. She 
dives silently into the cool water. I watch her gliding across the bay … long, 
languid side-strokes. Her movements so smooth and seamless that hardly a 
ripple breaks the surface. I quickly crouch behind the copse of pine trees high 
above. I am a voyeur.
Even as a ten-year-old I sense the magic, grace, and beauty of this mo-
ment. I love this woman. I love this mother fiercely. This is her moment but 
it has become mine as well. This is the first and sadly the last moment I will 
see her as perhaps she once was … vibrant, strong, in possession of herself in 
202         Volume 10, Number 1
Judi Thacker-Magee
the sheer bliss of doing what she so obviously loves to do, simply swim. In 
peace. In quiet. Alone.
I sense that this was a woman, my mother, before marriage and the birth 
of five children in nine years; before the self-consciousness of what birthing 
five had wrought upon her body; before the struggles of raising these children 
in the all-too-frequent absences of her travelling-salesman husband; before 
the financial worries; before the doubts, anxieties; before devoting every single 
waking moment to husband and children; before the exhaustion; before her 
loss of self.
Before she discovers that I have been watching her I race back to the 
cottage and throw myself on the couch with my book. I hear her steps on the 
cottage porch as she returns from her swim. I immerse myself in my novel. 
As the screen porch door closes behind her she glances over at me obviously 
surprised to see me.  She sighs almost inaudibly but says nothing. Nor do I. 
We will never speak of this moment. She goes into the bathroom to change 
out of her bathing suit and back into her summer pants and blouse to become 
once again the mother as I know her.
 “I guess I should make lunch for you all. The others will be back soon,” 
she says wearily.
I cherish the exhilaration of that unspoken moment to this very day. I will 
never know that woman but my caring for her has brought a new dimension 
of her into my life.
“That is a man without a good head on his shoulders. He should be wearing 
a hat.” This statement made by a woman who never says a bad word about 
anyone. A statement made about a bald-headed man on a frigid February day 
who passes by the restaurant window as she and I are having lunch.
 “Just look at that brilliant blue, cloudless sky. What a beautiful day. And 
the air is so fresh. The breeze feels so wonderful on my face.” She is in a state 
of rapture on this day as we walk arm and arm in a nearby park. A declaration 
made with an exuberance I have never heard from her before.
 “I’m sorry. I don’t remember your name,” she whispers to me as she at-
tempts to introduce me to her tablemate (whose name also eludes her) in the 
dining room of the nursing home. She is actually initiating a conversation, this 
woman, my mother who had no friends while at home raising her family … 
a woman who rarely spoke unless spoken to.
 “I wouldn’t want to be coming home after a night of drinking and try to 
find my house amongst all these identical homes,” she chuckles as we pass by 
the new housing development where every house is a replica of every other. 
This from my mother, who never socialized, never drank, and who only left 
her house to grocery shop.
My heart sings as I hear her joyfully hum along to a song on the car radio as 
we drive along the highway on another outing. Often we engage in a teasing, 
 Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering         203 
Birdy Bones
light-hearted banter in our time together. I am privy to wonderful flashes of 
her wit and wry humour. She is fascinated by babies, toddlers and animals. On 
our walks she does not hesitate to stop and ask a perfect stranger the name and 
age of their child or pet and comment on how beautiful or cute they are. 
I love the stories she tells me about her younger days as a single working woman; 
the clothes she wore, all tailored made by her seamstress-aunt, so well made 
that mom said that she could almost wear them inside out; how she carefully 
manicured her nails and applied fire-engine red nail polish in preparation for 
a day at work; how the smell of English lavender lingered in her hair after a 
day of working as a secretary at Yardley’s, the fragrance distributor of British 
perfumes in downtown Toronto. 
There is both a sense of betrayal and celebration in the new relationship 
between my mother and me. In her dementia she has shared herself with me 
but is unaware of doing so. I feel a sense of guilt. I am like the ten-year-old I 
once was in 1959, a voyeur, watching her through a one-way mirror. I celebrate 
what I have discovered about her. None of this would be possible if I was not 
so intimately connected to her through the care I am giving her.
I pull into the parking lot after a recent outing and carefully help mom from 
the car. She clutches her purse and purchases in one hand and I take her arm. 
Slowly we proceed up the walk to the door. I key in the code of entry. We take 
the elevator up to her second-floor room. I remove the purchases and purse 
from her hand and lay them on the bed. I turn to her and wrap my arms around 
her. She returns my embrace with an enormous strength that belies her frailty. 
Kissing me fully on the lips she thanks me for a wonderful afternoon.
I place my lips gently on her ear and whisper, “I love you birdy bones.”
My 28 year-old son asks me, “Aren’t you upset that your mom doesn’t remember 
your name?”
“No,” I answer in all honesty.
I have gone beyond the need to be named. I know at some level mom knows 
exactly who I am. Through my touch, the sound of my voice, my engagement 
with and caring for her she knows that she is loved by me, her eldest daughter, 
“Tildy.” Her affectionate hugs and kisses tell me this is so.


Birdy Bones

Reichert Powell
					, reviewed by Pegeen

300         Volume 10, Number 1
Book Reviews
The Mother-Daughter Project: How Mothers 
and Daughters Can Band Together, Beat the Odds, 
and Thrive Through Adolescence.
SuEllen Hamkins and Renee Shultz. 
New York: Hudson Street Press, 2007. 
Reviewed by Pegeen Reichert Powell
The “Mother-Daughter Project” of the title of this book refers to a group 
of mothers and daughters that the authors founded with five other mothers 
when each of their daughters were around seven years of age. Based on the 
conviction that “other mothers and daughters are one of the most power-
ful resources you can draw upon to help you safely shepherd your daughter 
through adolescence,” the group met regularly until the time of publication, 
when the girls were around seventeen (xviii). The mothers also held moth-
ers-only meetings, both to offer mutual support as mothers and to plan the 
mother-daughter get-togethers. As a result of the authors’ speaking engage-
ments, similar mother-daughter groups have since formed around the world. 
This book serves as a resource for women who are interested in starting a 
group of their own, as well as an accessible guide for other mothers facing 
their daughters’ adolescent years. 
Part one describes the research on which the group was founded. One 
chapter is devoted to the challenges facing daughters, another to the chal-
lenges facing mothers. What follows is an examination of the central tenet of 
the book: that separation or disconnection between daughters and mothers is 
neither necessary nor natural to a girl’s development, a view that challenges 
a psychological assumption that has been reinforced by popular culture. The 
authors posit instead that mothers and daughters should strive for “mother-
daughter mutuality” and a relationship in which both are empowered. Such 
a relationship, they suggest, is best fostered within a group of like-minded 
mothers and daughters. Since it is increasingly rare that extended families 
provide such a network of support, the authors offer instruction in how to 
create such a mother-daughter group.
 Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering        301 
Book Reviews
Part two of the book is best described in the authors’ own word as a “cur-
riculum.” Chapters seven through seventeen cover the corresponding year in 
daughters’ lives. Topics such as friendship, menstruation, body image, safety, 
and sexuality are covered at ages when they are most applicable to the girls’ 
experiences. Each chapter provides background information on these topics 
and suggests the types of conversations and activities in which the mother-
daughter group could engage to explore these topics together. While I had 
difficulty imagining myself engaged in some of the suggested activities, I 
was convinced by the proposition that I could intentionally involve other 
women in the raising of my daughter. 
Although Hamkins and Shultz are psychotherapists, their book often 
reads like a self-help book. Notably absent from the book are fathers, although 
that is understandable given the nature of the project. More problematic, 
however, is the absence of any discussion of how such a group could address 
the problems facing minority and/or poor mothers and daughters. For example, 
the chapter on body image focuses on appreciating women of all sizes and 
shapes, with no discussion of skin colour or hair types. Since all the women 
in the authors’ own mother-daughter group were working professionals, this 
book will be most helpful to readers who are interested in starting their own 
group—and who have the time and resources to do so.
I first encountered the work of Ann Douglas as a prospective parent. Her 
humorous and down-to-earth approach drew me in: rather than prescription, 
admonishments, and mother-blame, her work offered relevant insights and 
information culled from a combination of scientific evidence, recognized par-
enting theories, and, most importantly, the experiences and words of a legion 
of actual parents, all presented in a positive manner.
This approach characterizes Douglas’s latest book, Sleep Solutions for Your 
Baby, Toddler and Preschooler. Douglas, a seasoned writer whose published 
books now number twenty-eight, here discusses one of the most common 
challenges of parenthood: infant, toddler, preschooler—and, as she stresses, 
parent—sleep. Douglas does not venture into unexplored territory; indeed, the 
parenting literature on infant and toddler sleep is immense and includes such 
Sleep Solutions for Your Baby, Toddler and 
Preschooler: The Ultimate No-Worry Approach for 
Each Age and Stage
Ann Douglas. 
Mississauga: John Wiley & Sons, 2006.
Reviewed by Sonja Boon 


Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (JMI - York University)

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Blade

A Letter to My Daughter (To Be Sent in the Future)

The Contribution of Pedagogical Documentation to Maternal Efficacy Among Mothers of Pre-term Infants

Sangan River Meditations

Hail Mami, Full of Grace

Birdy Bones

The Mother-Daughter Project: How Mothers and Daughters Can Band Together, Beat the Odds, and Thrive Through Adolescence

Mothering After Suicide: The Poetry of Susan J. Woitas

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