Thanks for sharing your perspective, Suzanne. I lost my mother over 20 years ago and I still think of her a lot. We only began to talk about her life in the last few years. She was very guarded about her feelings.

One of the last conversations we had was when she asked my opinion about something she wrote about coping with my Dad, who suffered from Alzheimer’s. She was hoping to get it published. I told her it needed more personal details and emotional content. She abandoned the project because she said she didn’t want to open herself up to that kind of scrutiny.

There are so many questions I would ask her if she were alive today. I wonder if I’d get any answers.