Biography & Autobiography / Memoirs / Family & Relationships / Eldercare / Women
"Marianne Richmond’s early life was shaped by trauma and obfuscation, but in If You Were My Daughter she explores the covenant of motherhood and—with clarity, compassion and wit—reclaims her own story." — Jeannette Walls, New York Times bestselling author of The Glass Castle
Growing up with misdiagnosed epilepsy, nine-year-old Marianne Richmond desperately hopes for help and healing. But her emotionally unavailable mother refuses medication on Marianne's behalf, preferring to try prayer and homeopathy. At age 18, a full-body seizure leads to a diagnosis, medication, and the subsequent discovery and removal of a benign brain tumor. Over decades of physical healing, Marianne finds that emotionally healing from her absent mother is harder to do. So when her mother is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Dementia, Marianne has a choice to make: will she be present for the mother who rarely felt present to her?
If You Were My Daughter is a story of learning to hear your own voice, of one daughter’s return to wholeness, and ultimately, a story of accepting that, despite all hope and longing, a mother’s “best I could” can still be a mismatch for a daughter’s desires. Most of all, Marianne Richmond illuminates how the stories we’re born into shape the ones we tell about ourselves and reminds us that we have the powerful permission to develop a new relationship with what is difficult in our lives and to embody our truest identity.
