Quarter Two: Blog 8

Dear Miriam,
How could you have ignored your daughter for so long? I understand that when you were young, you excelled in school and that Eliza never has, but that doesn't mean that she is not your daughter. How is it possible to see your own daughter as "a gosling born into a family of ducks, loved and accepted, but always and forever a goose" (59)? After 10 years of being ignored, Eliza finally attracts your attention when she is spelling at the state bee. You realized that while she was spelling, so absorbed in the words that "not even a burning building could distract her," (59) she looked exactly like you did as a child. A sour feeling hit you when you remembered how you learned to concentrate so diligently; "such powers of concentration come from years of being alone, of needing to focus so strongly on one thing because there is nothing else" (59). By keeping your distance from Eliza, you made her exactly like you as a child: a lonely outsider. So Miriam, how are you going to make her feel included and loved? What kind of mother doesn't include and love her daughter in the first place? You may not be a conventional mother, but I know that you love Eliza. So my advice to you is to show her how much she means you you because she doesn't know it yet.