No More Words: A Journal of My Mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Once in a while, if you're lucky, you find a book that fits so perfectly into your life that it seems sent by God. This book is that for me. It's about mothers and daughters, about loss, about words, about family, about the unspeakable. It brought pain, but it also brought comfort. It's a book I wish I had written. It's a book I'd give to every woman who, as an adult, loses her mother. It makes me want to find Reeve Lindbergh and thank her.

Everyone knows the author Anne Morrow Lindbergh. If they do not then they should! In the summer of 1999 she was ninety-three years old and living with her youngest child, Reeve. Reeve, at the time of No More Words, was a fifty-four mother sandwiched between caring for her elderly mother, being a wife, and raising a seventh grader son. She writes of this experience beautifully.
In a nutshell, No More Words is a poignant memoir. It was lovely of Reeve to quote her mother's work at the beginning of every chapter, but she also included some of her sister's poetry and a snippet of her father's autobiography. Like a delicious cake studded with extra sweet strawberries, Reeve's memoir is a treat of all the Lindbergh's voices.

A respectful look at Anne Morrow Lindbergh's last year and a half, No More Words is as much or more about her daughter Reeve, who writes about this time with a lot of delicacy. The book has a way of pulling you in, especially the quiet moments between mother and daughter. As well-intentioned as the book is, though, I wondered at times if Mrs. Lindbergh would have wanted her decline to be presented to the world at large in this way. I'm glad I read it, but I wasn't always comfortable reading it.

What a wonderful book this is! In her later years, Anne Lindbergh's youngest child, her daughter Reeve, moved her to Vermont in order to give quality care. Building a house on the property of their farm, Reeve and her husband Nat, devoted time and love to Anne.

While the other family members frequently visited, it was Reeve who was responsible for the day to day existence of Anne. This is Reeve's story of the sadness, the humor and the daily reflection of communicating with her mother.

Crediting the round-the-clock care takers, Reeve acknowledged that this was not something the average family could afford. Fortunately, the family was not alone in assisting Anne.

With the backdrop of the beauty of living in rural Vermont, and told in show more exceedingly powerful words that captured the feelings and thoughts of trying to communicate with a mother who, because of a series of strokes, and Alzheimer's disease, verbal communication was limited and confusing.

Childlike and stubborn, periodically Anne's actions were difficult to cope with and to understand. Reflecting on the life of the wife of Charles Lindberg, using some of the poems and works of Anne, this book shines from the first to the last page.

Highly recommended!! show less

Anne Morrow Lindbergh is known, aside from being the wife of Charles A. Lindbergh, for her words. She was a poet, an essayist, a writer of journals. She was a speaker of speeches & a sought-after conversationalist. Words were her life. And as the days of her life began to run low, so did her words.
Reeve Lindbergh, the youngest daughter of Anne & Charles has kept a journal of her mother's last years. At that time, Anne lived with her caretakers in a small house next to the home of Reeve & her husband & children. Reeve Lindbergh has written novels, essays & a memoir of growing up in the Lindbergh household - "Under a Wing."
Anne Morrow Lindbergh had been a widow for 25 years. For 10 years, she suffered the effects of a series of small show more strokes that took away various abilities to function -- she needed caretakers --but left her still cognizant of her situation. She lost, first, the ability (or perhaps the desire to write) Her conversation became limited, though she was still able to follow the conversations of others. But she continued to read, even though the only books she read were those which had entertained her in the past. Her love of words never failed her, though the workings of her mind slowed.
Reeve Lindbergh follows the decline of her mother's last years with discretion & tenderness. She quotes from Anne Morrow Lindberg's essays & poetry. The book concludes with a reading of "Testament" from "The Unicorn & Other Poems." which wa read at her memorial service. The first line begins "But how can I live without you--she cried" show less

Reeve, daughter of Anne Morrow Lindberg, writes a tender, reflective healing account of her mothers’ final decline and death.

Sad and lovely. A daughter's loving observations of her mother's slow death.