"Project Mom" is a collection of the remembrances-good and bad, funny and sad-of 26 women and 1 man about life with mother. The writers vary in background, education, family situation, geographic region, age (9-90), and so many other factors. Yet somehow, in telling sometimes widely different stories about the women who raised them, these writers have tapped into the universal elements of motherhood, things like patience, dedication, love, strength, happiness, responsibility, tradition, dignity, faith, and, most of all, sacrifice. The editors were handed these tremendous life touchstones, a patchwork of memories for a verbal quilt. Hopefully it will inspire you, the reader, to stitch your mother's story into this quilt. To that end, we leave some blank pages at the end of the book for you to enter your mother's story as the last essay of "Project Mom."