“My story matters because I matter.
I am absolutely ENOUGH.”
- Brene Brown
"The Gifts of Imperfection"
About Us
We are looking forward to connecting with you!
Isabella (Izzy) Aguirre is a social worker in the Kansas City Area, completing her graduate degree at KU in Clinical Social Work. She resides in Lee’s Summit with her husband and two cats, Eleanor & Rigby.
Isabella (Izzy) Aguirre
“I wanted to bring Motherless Daughters to Kansas City because I wanted women to have a sacred space to share in the particular kind of grief that is experienced by women who lose their most significant female confidant. Celebration and mourning takes place over the entire lifespan once a loss occurs, and I knew it was important to create a community where this could be done candidly and unapologetically.
I lost my mother at nineteen. Her absence has been profound as I have grown into a woman. At every stage of life, I have examined and re-evaluated the complexities of my relationship with her. At each of these turns, I have encountered new grief for what was and what could have been. I found the book Motherless Daughters in a store shortly after her death but was unable to afford even a book at the time. The term stuck in my mind for years, long before I sought the book out again. I finally knew what to call myself- the hole in my identity had a name! Once I could sit truly absorb the book, I knew it had re-shaped my relationship with my grief. It’s important to me to facilitate that empowerment, community, and healing for other Motherless Daughters.”
Isabella (Izzy) Aguirre is a social worker in the Kansas City Area, completing her graduate degree at KU in Clinical Social Work. She resides in Lee’s Summit with her husband and two cats, Eleanor & Rigby.
Rebecca (Becky) Burns
My mom passed away unexpectedly from leukemia when I was 8 and my brother was 6.
We didn’t talk about her much and I didn’t feel like it was ok for me to be sad about her death. It felt like my life before my mom died was a fairytale that I was always trying to get back there, but couldn’t.
It wasn’t until I was diagnosed, at 37, with breast cancer that I finally started unpacking my grief. I had just finished treatment and was attending the funeral service of an acquaintance (she was also in her late 30s)who died from breast cancer. She had three small children, the oldest of which was 8. It just hit me so hard. I felt like my heart was breaking for those children, knowing what it was like to grow up without my mom.
I realized it was time to start healing. I searched the internet for books on grief for adults who suffered loss of a parent as a child, and quickly discovered that Hope Edelman’s book “Motherless Daughter’s” was the only one out there on the topic.
I can finally (usually) talk about my mom without crying, and I am slowly working through the “shame” of still grieving 34 years later.
I feel like grief is more a “perpetual state of being” rather than a process to move through. I will ALWAYS be grieving for my mother and the relationship I missed out on. I will NEVER “be over it.”
I feel so blessed to be able to support other daughters moving through their grief.
Becky Burns has an MS in Chemistry and previously worked for 15 years as a Pharmaceutical Scientist. She is involved with PIVOT (Patients and Investigator Voices Organizing Together) as a Patient Cancer Research advocate and is a member of Hope Edelman’s AfterGrief Street Team. She lives in Lee’s Summit with her husband, daughter, and two dogs, Victoria and Lulu.
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