I wish my mother had left me something about how she felt growing up. I wish my grandmother had done the same. I wanted my girls to know me.

Burnett frames personal writing as an act of intergenerational repair. Lamenting the absence of emotional testimony from her mother and grandmother, she identifies a common gap in family histories: facts survive, but inner lives often do not. The quote suggests that memory and identity are strengthened when descendants can access not only what ancestors did, but how they experienced childhood, hardship, and change. Her final sentence turns the regret into a motive—leaving a record so her daughters can encounter her as a whole person, not merely as “Mom” or as a public figure. It elevates journaling and memoir from self-expression to a gift of continuity and understanding.