Margaret Hoover interviews Canadian American journalist Danielle Crittenden this week on Firing Line  about the heartbreaking loss that she and her husband, David Frum, faced in 2024 when their 32-year-old daughter, Miranda, died suddenly from complications from a 2019 surgery.  Her new book, Dispatches from Grief: A Mother’s Journey through the Unthinkable, chronicles how they have faced life after “a meteorite hits your house and all that’s left is a smoking ruin.” Crittenden mentions how much it helped her to write the book, “I felt I needed to write what was happening to me,” almost as if she was a foreign correspondent. The process helped her stay close to Miranda, who “spoke” to her often during this difficult journey, too. “I heard her voice say, ‘You got this, Mom,’ and I felt it.” She also recalls that Miranda’s brother, Nat, who was in Los Angeles at the time of his sister’s death, woke up suddenly at three a.m. EST “with the most horrible sense of dread.” It was the time, according to the coroner, that Miranda died. “Everyone I’ve spoken to has some story that is inexplicable,” Danielle told Margaret.

Within minutes of watching this interview, I purchased the book on Kindle partly because I’ve been thinking about a mother’s grief for a long time. Early on, Danielle observes, how shocked she was to discover “how crowded this Alternative Universe,” is of people who have lost a close family member, especially a child, at a young age. “The person you were died with your child. There is no “healing.” No journey back to yourself – that map burned with everything else. On that February morning we became entirely different people wearing the same faces.”

There are a lot of mothers who may not be celebrating with flowers and brunches today. Those with high profiles such as Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, who lost her beloved daughter, Tatiana Schlossberg, a young mother herself, on December 30, 2025, have  stories that we learn about with great sadness and empathy. And with deep appreciation for the courage it takes for them to tell their stories. There are thousands more hidden stories.

Another category of mothers who deserve our special consideration today is military mothers who are separated from their sons or daughters right now, or who have lost a child in the service of this country. Some of these mothers of fallen service members did not know initially what happened to their sons or possibly daughters. For almost a year, I have been revisiting my great grandmother’s story about the death of her oldest son, and the inexplicable events surrounding that tragedy in 1907. (The book will be released soon in a second edition for the first time in paperback and as an e-book.)  As part of this research, I have also come to know three mothers who lost their Army sons in 2004, Peggy Buryj, Karen Meredith and Mary Tillman. They must find it hard to be celebratory on Mother’s Day or on Memorial Day. Even twenty-two years after their loss, many of the emotions Danielle Crittenden refers to in her  book reflect their experiences. As their words over the years parallel hers. They would agree with Danielle who admitted that as long as she was writing the book she felt close to Miranda.

And there is another way to gain perspective about today’s holiday. In the reflections by Heather Cox Richardson on May 9, we visit the origins of Mother’s and Mothers’ Day.  “If you google the history of Mother’s Day, the internet will tell you that Mother’s Day began in 1908 when Anna Jarvis decided to honor her mother. But “Mothers’ Day”—with the apostrophe not in the singular spot, but in the plural—actually started in the 1870s, when the sheer enormity of the death caused by the Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War convinced writer and reformer Julia Ward Howe that women must take control of politics from the men who had permitted such carnage. Mothers’ Day was not designed to encourage people to be nice to their mothers. It was part of women’s effort to gain power to change society. . . While we celebrate the modern version of Mother’s Day on May 10, in this momentous year of 2026, it’s worth remembering the original Mothers’ Day and Julia Ward Howe’s conviction that women must have the same rights as men, and that they must make their voices heard.” That’s what Peggy, Karen, Mary and Rosa Sutton fought for as they made their voices heard in a search for the truth about the fate of their military sons.