A lingering sense of loss

Sometime during a 51-hour labor, Hope Edelman typed a letter to her unborn daughter.

In it, she vowed to be a good mother, to live up to the legacy left by her own mother, whom she lost to breast cancer at age 17. It was one of many letters she had already written to her daughter, now stored in a safety deposit box, just in case she dies early.

Unusual? Not for motherless mothers, according to Edelman, 41, who tapped into an unexplored market 12 years ago when she wrote the bestseller “Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss.” Filled with real-life stories from nearly 100 women who had lost their mothers, the book sold more than 500,000 copies, appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for 16 weeks and propelled Edelman into prominence as an expert on mother loss. She helped start a national support group in New York; now there are 19 chapters in the U.S. and other countries, such as Switzerland.

Now, married and a mother of two daughters, Edelman is back in time for Mother’s Day with her new book, “Motherless Mothers: How Mother Loss Shapes the Parents We Become.” Filled with tales from the front lines of parenting, the book relies on surveys, interviews and anecdotes from Edelman’s own life to track what happens to motherless women once they have their own children. While the recovery of the mother-child bond is healing, she believes, the loss of a mom’s mother as a support system and role model dredges up feelings of grief for many new mothers and shapes their parenting styles.

Edelman thought she had covered the mother loss subject after her first book, but after being put on partial bed rest during her pregnancy with her second daughter, Edelman said she realized how much she missed having her mother to take care of her. In a way, it was like losing her all over again.

For Edelman, the loss of her mother, Marcia, shattered the family. Although her mom had been ill for two years, the death took Edelman, her brother and sister by surprise and forever altered her middle-class, East Coast family.

Edelman, who now lives in Topanga Canyon with her husband, Uzi Eliahou, who runs an Internet marketing company, and two daughters, Maya, 8, and Eden, 4, said she was aware of how her mother’s death affected her own parenting.

“My standards for motherhood, and for what I tell myself a mother should do and be, are so high that most of the time my fingers barely brush the bar,” she writes.

For the new book, she interviewed 78 motherless mothers over three years and conducted a Internet survey of more than 1,300 women. She found several key traits in motherless mothers: They are overprotective, they give a child what was missing from their own childhoods and they are preoccupied with death -- of a spouse, a child or themselves. The almost compulsive vigilance and free-roaming fear prompt many motherless mothers to keep meticulous records, construct elaborate scrapbooks and extensive home movies, just in case.

Also, without a role model of mothering of their own, many motherless mothers find themselves bewildered about what it means to be a “good mother.” Many -- particularly those who lost their mother before age 12 -- exhaust themselves striving for a vague perfection based on imperfect memories.

“They know how randomly the relationship could be broken,” said Edelman, a tall brunet with straight, long hair who projects a mixture of self-sufficiency and fragile sensitivity. “They identify with the kids, and they want to give them everything so that child has had the best mother that child can have, just in case the relationship is cut short.”

In fact, more than half of the motherless moms said they worried “often” about dying young, compared with only 15% of the mothers whose mothers were still alive.

One mother interviewed for the book stored a computer file called “When I Am Gone.” In it she details for her husband how to run the house in case of her death. It is filled with elaborate instructions: “Kyra likes her milk hot. You fill it up to the second line of the sippy cup, microwave it for 56 seconds exactly, swirl it around, and then put the top on.”

Reaching and passing the age that their mothers were when they died is one of the significant transitions a motherless woman will make, writes Edelman, who will reach that milestone next year. It’s a key marker, which involves both death anxiety and survivor anxiety. Seeing your own child at the age you were when a mother died is also another powerful emotional landmark.

Irene Rubaum-Keller, 48, a Santa Monica therapist who lost her own mother at age 7, was worried that she was going to die the year her son was 7. He is now 8. “I’m sure my anxiety was transferred to him, and he went though a lot of separation anxiety that has passed now,” said Keller, who runs the Motherless Daughters of Los Angeles, a network of more than 200 women.

The group will host a Motherless Daughter’s Day luncheon on Saturday, with Edelman as guest speaker. Other chapters throughout the nation, including Dallas and Orange County, will hold similar events.

A day to honor moms

Mother’s Day itself is rooted in mother loss. It was started in 1908 by Anna Jarvis, who wanted to honor her recently deceased mother. By 1914, President Wilson had declared it a national holiday to be held on the second Sunday of May.

“She managed to put Mother’s Day on the map,” said Edelman.

Motherless mothers often have a hard time asking for help, in part because of the self-sufficiency and coping skills they were forced to develop after their mothers died. Indeed, Edelman found that after the birth of a first child, 52% of the motherless mothers said they managed without any help from friends, paid help or family (except for a spouse or partner), while only 15% of the other mothers did.

She also found that motherless mothers grapple with a powerful tension in their parenting.

On the one hand, they want to impart self-sufficiency and independence to their children in case the children must endure what they once did. On the other, in their heightened need to give more than they got, they can become a hovering presence in their children’s lives that unwittingly creates its own dependence. As a group too, motherless mothers said they were more exhausted than other mothers, but didn’t mind as much since they found their work healing.

Handling anger and rejection from their children is especially difficult for motherless mothers. Nearly every woman Edelman interviewed said she could recall a time when she thought of saying, “You’re lucky to have a mother!” to her child, and half of the mothers did say it. Spouses of motherless mothers who notice some of these characteristics can be supportive by realizing what is driving the behavior.

“You can be aware that the issues have to do with mother loss so you know that you are dealing with,” said Uzi, Edelman’s husband.

After a recent reading for Motherless Mothers at Dutton’s Brentwood Bookstore, Ann-Marie Christian, 28, stood outside and wiped away the tears on her face with a white Kleenex.

After losing her mother 10 years ago to suicide, Christian is now struggling with whether to start her own family, with her husband of more than a year.

“There are so many thoughts that go unsaid” when you’ve lost your mother, said Christian. “This lets you say them out loud and you know you aren’t alone.”

Edelman’s new book is helping to heal the wounds for a whole new group of motherless daughters, Keller said.

“All I can say is thank you,” she said. “When she wrote ‘Motherless Daughters,’ there was nothing like it.”

Edelman, who got her undergraduate degree in journalism from Northwestern University in the early 1980s, landed her first full-time job editing magazines for the now-defunct Whittle Communications in Knoxville, Tenn. There, she said, “I discovered how little journalism pays,” and she left for graduate work at the University of Iowa’s nonfiction writing program. A professor there encouraged her to write about her mother’s death, which is how her first book began.

Edelman returns to Iowa each summer and teaches nonfiction writing. She also offers private writing workshops on the Westside, as well as workshops through West Coast Writers Workshops. She also teaches at Antioch University, Los Angeles.

Some readers wonder about the franchise she’s developed: for example, will there be a motherless grandmothers book?

“I’m blessed with the most amazing group of readers,” said Edelman, “but I’m done with mother loss now.”