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Emptying the Nest: Getting Better at Goodbyes
Emptying the Nest: Getting Better at Goodbyes, is an award-winning book about change, identity, and mental health. When Morgan Baker’s daughter, Maggie, left for college and Baker also parted with nine puppies from a litter the family raised, she collapsed into a deep depression. She eventually adjusted and, with a lot of help, did better when her younger daughter left for school. By the time Maggie graduated from college and moved to LA with her boyfriend, Baker was ready. She prepared by focusing on herself, and what she wanted. Her identity shifted. While Baker will always be a nurturer, she is more than a mother. (Ten16 Press).
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WHAT READERS ARE SAYING
"Most mothers go through empty nest syndrome, and Morgan was no different. She had to say goodbye to a litter of puppies as they went to their forever home, and then Morgan had to watch her daughter leave for college. When Maggie left for college, everything came crashing down, and Morgan was severely depressed. She had no idea how to cope and what to do with herself. With her family needing her, Morgan learned how to deal with an empty nest; stay strong when the next bird flies away, and find out who she was as a person. Who was she if she wasn’t a mother and a provider? What was her identity?"
— from a review by Rabia Tanveer for Readers' Favorite
“Morgan Baker weaves together big emotions and life’s minutiae in a way that reminds us that a full life is in the details. Emptying the Nest speaks openly of loss and depression while also celebrating the importance of love, family, and self-care to move past the hard times.”
— Myriam Steinberg, author of award-winning graphic memoir, Catalogue Baby:A Memoir of (In)fertility
“As a mother of one daughter (who is also getting ready to start college and who also suffers from anxiety and depression), this memoir is both beautiful and deeply touching. Also, as a veterinarian and fur-mom to six cats and one golden retriever, this is the absolute embodiment of what I adore about Morgan and about dog-people! Morgan’s writing is so personal and poignant. This book fills one with the joy of human and fur motherhood, and with the beauty and heartbreak that can be present in loss and change. It is so full of love and hope! I absolutely devoured this book and was very deeply touched by its pages!”
–Dawn Binder, VMD, mother and veterinarian
“When the reliable world wobbles and spins off its axis, when change upends our lives, the journey to grasping the new reality and one’s own new purpose in it is painful, confusing, and long. In Getting Better at Goodbyes, Morgan Baker has gone into that confusion and pain and left us a trail from bewilderment and sadness to clarity and renewal, from dissolution to resolution. This book is balm and encouragement for all unsettled by their losses, stunned by how much they hurt, surprised by intractable sorrow.”
— Richard Hoffman author of Love & Fury
“Not only is this inspiring and courageous memoir filled with love, but its sentences are also infused with wisdom, warmth, and wit.”
—Delia Cabe, author of Storied Bars of New York; Senior Affiliated Faculty of Writing, Literature & Publishing at Emerson College
“As Morgan moves through transitions that necessitate goodbyes, creates quilts to mark those transitions, and navigates the depression that strikes her as her dog and human families change shape, I relived my own family’s transitional years in a deeply emotional way. Morgan’s narrative moves back and forth through time, each of her memories a thread connecting to the next, each so filled with heart and often sadness.”
–Betsy Leahy Morton, Teacher
About The Author
Morgan Baker is an award-winning writer, the Managing Editor of The Bucket and professor at Emerson College. Her work is featured in The New York Times Magazine, The Boston Globe Magazine, The Brevity Blog, Talking Writing, The Bark, Cognoscenti, and Hippocampus, among many regional and national publications. She lives with her husband and two dogs in Cambridge, where she also quilts and bakes.