Tamsen Fadal

You couldn't feel the depth of pain without there being the depth of that love.

And she said when she finally understood that, that the grief was just the love with nowhere to go, she exhaled.

And I have to tell you, when she said that, I thought about it all weekend after she left the show.

We recorded the show and I'm like...

Oh my gosh, no one's ever said that to me before.

I've never even thought of something like that.

So maybe you're in a lot of pain right now.

Maybe you had your mom for a long time, but she passed recently and this is your first Mother's Day without her.

And my arms are around you if that's the case.

But I want you to know, if you're in a lot of pain, it's because you loved a lot.

That's not a wound.

That is evidence of something really beautiful that you had.

And for the women in complicated living relationships, while I have not been through that, what I've come to understand is that grieving what you didn't have is also really so legitimate.

grieving the mother you needed and didn't get.

That version of this relationship that you see a lot of other people in that you were hoping for or still hope for.

That grief that you've gone through, that deserves the same space and the same type of compassion as any other thing we're talking about.

You're not less than, that's not less than just because your mother is still alive and maybe you don't have that relationship.

It's interesting.

I booked Kelly McDaniel on this show

who wrote a book called Mother Hunger.