As a child, I hated my schizophrenic mother’s too-big body. As a young woman, I starved myself, only learning to eat at 26, after my mother overdosed on her medication and died. Still, I recoiled from cameras, fearful that photos would reveal that I, too, was fat. At 38, I found a letter she’d sent me at camp: “It’s so lonely without you. I love + miss you A LOT.” I wept. That night, my fiancée, Shannon, took my picture. Studying my breasts, stomach, thighs, I saw my mother. “I love you, too,” I said, silently, as if in prayer.