Amazing, terrific short story about a mother contemplating the life of her daughter. (that *so* does not do it justice)
The strange thing is that I cannot immediatly point out how this story affirms life, how it instructs. Yet I will definitely defend it as a truly moral story. Is it for “Life’s potential for turning tragic” as being “a fact of our existence.” For describing this so well, so pointedly, with so much feeling?
It is in no way didactic. On the contrary, the mother tells us of all the things she didn’t do, or the things she couldn’t do, for her daughter. Olsen shows how much the mother mourns this, is unable to change anything about it, though still asks desperately - knowing the answer too well - ‘but what could I have done?’ Is it this torment that can nudge us, that can help us fix our moral compass? Perhaps, perhaps.
This story really, really got to me and perhaps that is why this is rambling along.
