Letters to My Mother

Hello friends, family and all those that get touched by this...

My name is Karlene and in 2016 my team and I put on an event called Letters To My Mother to honour the life of my mother and mothers that had passed on. The event wasn't about my mother specifically, rather it was put on to celebrate, honour and respect the lives of mothers, mother-figures, grandmothers etc through sharing written letters, pictures and conversations. This event was breathtaking, moving and something that will always stick with me and those who attended. Not only did this event make a difference to those who wrote letters, it made a difference to those who read them and whose mothers were alive. It called people to write letters there and then and for people to actually give letters they had written to their parents who had life to read them. I knew I had to do this event again. 

Fast forward to 2019 and I'd finally got myself together to plan for another event for March 2020. Well as you all know with COVID 19 lock-down all plans to have any kind of live event got dismantled. I was still committed to make some sort of difference and pivoted focus to having several Guided Letter Writing Sessions online to give space and support to those who wanted to be apart of this initiative and write to their Mothers. I've been running these monthly since February 2020. 

One good thing has come out of COVID 19 and me concentrating on having the sessions online and not so much the event itself. It got me to see that I could make a difference with this ongoing and I didn't have to stop after an event had happened. I am still planning to have another event on the 13th March 2021 and in the meantime will continue to offer monthly Guided Letter Writing Sessions and producing a fully functioning experience of this initiative online via www.created-connections/letterstomymother 

All funds raised here are going towards providing the Guided Letter Writing Sessions, producing the website and the live event in 2021. 


My Mother was sadly murdered in the 1980s. I was young and I had no words to describe how I felt. Even as I grew up just knowing that I no longer had my mother with me was quite obviously a source of hurt and upset in my life. However I discovered in 2007 I could write a letter to her as a way to communicate all that I had kept inside. I had to a lot to say. Once all that I had pent up was said and out there was still a gap. I had nothing else to say to her about my the past it had been laid to rest. But there was still somehow a gap. A different gap but a gap all the same. It wasn't painful or bad or even upsetting. It was just a gap.  A year later I wrote to my mother again. This time I wrote about my life as it was then and what I wanted for the future as if she was there to talk to at any time. Like as if somehow I had picked up the phone and there she was. I then had this idea  come to me called Letters to my Mother initially it was going to be  series of letters from people in my family to her and something else came to me to do it for those whose mothers had passed on. 

No matter if you can contribute to creating this event by donating money or not, or if you share this with others in your circle or simply just read this, thank you, all actions are a contribution to this. 

Lots of love and guidance,

Karlene and her mother Jackie