Mother's and Daughters...by Rae Meadows

I just finished reading "Mother's and Daughters" by my good friend Rae Meadows. I'm ashamed that it took me so long to read. Her past books, I've read in manuscript form. This one has been out on the shelves for months, sitting on my night stand, uncracked. But boy am I proud of her. What a lovely moving story. It follows three women. Three mothers, three daughters. And of course, their lives are intertwined. Like in "The Hours", we learn of their connection as we amble through the pages of the book. But there is no trickery or drawing out of their relationships - their experiences as both mothers and daughters lead us there seamlessly.

There is some little known history in the book that enlightens us about orphan trains, which took poor children from New York City to the mid-west to find Christian homes in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Some kids found homes, others were dumped into indentured servitude. While the Christian Aid Society meant well, all stories did not end well. Still, many consider these orphan trains and the Aid Society to be the pre-cursor to modern day foster care. But...this is not the most interesting part of the book. Maybe because I'm generally not one to be swept up by facts.

For me, history is never the most meditative or lyrical aspect of any story. It is true therefore there is nothing on which to linger, however heart tugging it may be. It is information. Period.

The remarkable thing about this book is the honesty. The way it holds up motherhood and daughterhood and examines it from all sides. The excruciating contrasts - the adoration and resentment, the loving obsession and the fear, the intimacy of knowing and the distance that is inevitable because we are separate people from our daughters and our mothers, after all.

I loved this book. Its poignancy made me weep. Its truth in the emotional contradictions of being a mother wrenched my heart.

And I am so so so so proud of my friend Rap for putting these words together for us to feel moved and enlightened by.