Mom No More: Coping with the Late-Life Loss of Adult Children - One Woman's Story

An orphan is someone who has lost both parents, and a widow is someone who has lost her husband, but what do you call a mother who has lost both of her children? There is no name for them. "Imagine, if you dare, that your marriage is over, your parents are dead, your siblings are dead, and your children are dead. You are sixty-seven years old and no longer employed. What would you do?" "Why would God take away both of my children and leave me alone in my old age? I am not a perfect person. I have made mistakes, but that is a terrible punishment and I am not a bad person." "Life still hurts. A memory sneaks up on me and brings me to my knees on a regular basis, but I cry it out, I write it out, and get on with it." Mignon Matthews lost her daughter Evie in 1980, when she was eighteen, and her son Albert in 2005, when he was forty-two. This is her story.