" Strange, now, how after so many years my mother’s model is starting to recede. Before I became a mother, I was a motherless daughter, and “motherless” always overshadowed “daughter” in that phrase. Now I’m a motherless mother, and “mother” is the word that carries most of the weight. Early loss influences me, daily, but it doesn’t define me anymore. "

― Hope Edelman , Motherless Mothers: How Mother Loss Shapes the Parents We Become