Creating Memories...Shaping Futures

As I'm reading through the beginning chapters of Brennan Manning's Memoir, " All Is Grace: A Ragamuffin Memoir"...my heart stops and my eyes fill for a moment.
Brennan Manning is talking about his mother - she says, "You don't alway get what you ask for." His mother grew up in an orphanage in Canada, after her parents passed away from a flu epedemic, when she was three-years-old. She lived in the orphanage until she was thirteen, when a man came to adopt her.
He says- " I've wondered if anyone was there to help a three-year-old grieve? Did anyone remember to celebrate her birthday? Did they even know her birthday? What about Christmas-was there gifts for her? Who were the adult females behind those walls and what kind of mothering impressions, if any, did they make on her?..."