Vanessa

“She told us as much about herself as she saw fit, but generally she said little, like a real mother whose past has become immaterial in her total concern for the future of her children.”
― Magda Szabo , The Door

“To write is live on. The page rescues us from a longing for finality. Grief doesn't wholly assail our imaginations. The creative drive, the artistic impulse, is above all a thunderous yes to life.”
― Billy-Ray Belcourt, A History of My Brief Body

“In London her grief was retracted into sudden realisations of her loss. She had thought that sorrow would be her companion for many years and had planned for its entertainment. Now it visited her like sudden snow-storms, a hastening darkness across the sky, a transient whiteness and rigour cast upon her. She tried to recover the sentiment of renunciation which she had worn like a veil. It was gone, and gone with it was her sense of the dignity of bereavement.”
― Sylvia Townsend Warner

“Often father and daughter look down on mother (woman) together. They exchange meaningful glances when she misses a point. They agree that she is not bright as they are, cannot reason as they do. This collusion does not save the daughter from the mother’s fate.”
― Bonnie Burstow, Radical Feminist Therapy: Working in the Context of Violence