Synopsis to "If Mama Were Here: Living Without Mama"

When her mother dies during childbirth, seven-year-old Donna Jean tries to understand where her mother has gone while her father struggles to raise his eleven children, seven of whom are under the age of nine. This struggle is made worse by the poverty pervading their home and the State's insistence that the younger children be placed with other families. Determined not to let his family be broken up and the mourning the untimely death of his wife, he tries his hardest to keep Donna Jean and her siblings in line. However, like Anne Shirley of Anne of Green Gables, Donna Jean has a talent for making mischief.

Told in retrospect while, as an adult, Donna Jean attends a grief workshop to try to deal with the lingering pain of her mother's death. This poignant story will stay with you long after you've turned the final page.

If Mama Were Here: Living Without Mama is the first volume in Donna Jean's tale. It is followed by Faded Genes: Memories of a Motherless Daughter.