I believe that true identity is found . . . in creative activity springing from within. It is found, paradoxically, when one loses oneself. Woman can best refind herself in some kind of creative activity of her own.
-Anne Morrow Lindbergh
One of the most intriguing biographies I've think I've ever read is Anne Morrow Lindbergh : A Gift for Life by Dorothy Herrmann.
The quality paperback was published in 1993 and I bought my copy in mid 1995. Matter of fact, I have the receipt in the book as it was from Borders Books and Music where I worked at the time and my boyfriend {my husband the following year!} who also worked at the bookstore, rang the purchase up. Wow, that receipt is quite old! Inside the book I have the newspaper clipping of Mrs. Lindbergh's obituary dated February 8, 2001 on her passing the day before. Such a treasure this book is for me as well as holds.
I don't remember when I first heard about the aviator duo of Charles and Anne Lindbergh but theirs was a life-adventure for certain, filled with triumphs and tragedies. I am forever interested in these type stories, fiction or fact, where a person goes through strife and comes out on the other side still standing. Maybe not standing well, but standing just the same and stronger for it all. Anne Morrow Lindbergh had her share of sorrow and pain and her story, beautifully shared and documented, has lasted with me all these years. Since reading it, I've gathered her writings and poured over them. Her book, Gift from the Sea, is a small book yet overflows with timeless motherhood wisdom and thoughtful passages to ponder and incorporate into your own path of life.
Earlier this Fall, at a used book sale I was thrilled to find a copy of her daughter's book, No More Words: a Journal of My Mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh by Reeve Lindbergh. I savored it over a few evenings and needed several {more like many} tissues upon finishing it. Her daughter walks the reader through the last 17 months of her mother's life; it is a slow, tender, painful, lovely intimate journal. Mrs. Lindbergh suffered several mini strokes in her 90s and was left frail and dependent on caregivers. Reeve shares her frustration as a daughter of an aging parent how it was to tend to her and see her mother decline to the very end.
Even though this book is about pending death, it is more about life. How precious and fleeting life is and how the precious hours can linger as if the end is near but yet life holds on and there's another hour, another day and the sun comes again. The fine line in watching her mother die and slowly-live was difficult. It's such a private thing and as the reader you are ushered in to see them together in their space, in the waiting.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh died at the age of 94. She was a wife, a mother, an aviator, and an author.
Don't wish me happiness
I don't expect to be happy all the time ...
It's gotten beyond that somehow
Wish me courage and strength and a sense of humor.
I will need them all.
-Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from The Sea
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