The Ten Thousand Things

<p><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>How do you make peace with a cold distant mother who is slowly dying? </strong><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>The author was faced with this very question. Diving in to help her she soon recalled harsh lonely childhood memories in remote red rock country during the West's dam-building era. There she escaped her silent home by wandering outside-befriending lizards plants and the native sandstone landscape.</span></p><p></p><p><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Alongside her sisters the author navigates the maze of her mother's needs and sees her through her final days</strong><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> but then finds herself alone at a dark abyss filled with ten thousand unanswered questions.</span></p><p></p><p><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Who was her mother? </strong><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>What made her so secretive and unable to connect with her daughters? What was she hiding and why? </span><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>The author's young memories hold clues</strong><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> that lead her back to her parent's hometown where she spent long-ago summer weeks at her grandmother's house. There a spry 90-year old aunt now willingly shares old tales about both her parents. With her aunt's help the author finally fills in-yet doesn't find-a singular meaning resolving who her mother was.</span></p><p></p><p><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Come along on this soulful generational journey of loss and love.</strong><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> Find a deeper acceptance of family belonging and a surprising meaning of one's own purpose illumined by a universal Love that shines through all beings everywhere including ancient peoples there from the beginning of it all.</span></p>