"Most people don't have any idea about all the complicated life going on inside a hive. Bees have a secret life we don't know anything about." (Kidd 148) In a fictional novel by Sue Monk Kidd, Lily Owens is a white young female that is living with black women during time of racial oppression, who has ran away from home, and also a miscreant. Therefore life with the Calendar sisters must remain a secret just as the life of bees. Despite yearning for her mother and learning that she was a flawed human being, Lily learns to rid her belief of her own unworthiness in love, she frees herself from T.Ray's toxic existence in her life, and Sue Monk Kidd is conveying the gravitation of children to their mothers.
"You are unlovable, Lily Owens. Unloveable. Who could love you? Who in this world could ever love you?" (Kidd 242) .
After years of being tormented by T. Rays lack of affection as a father, physical abuse, and emotional neglect, Lily had not received proper care from a parental figure. "My mother's life was too heavy for me" (Kidd 249) The burden of accidentally killing her own mother weighs Lily down, the event having shape her future leading her to a developing self- hatred. She becomes unable to express her true thoughts towards August because she feels as though it is a selfish act to do so."I wanted to say, I love you, too. I love you all. The feelings rose up in me like a column of wind, but when it got to my mouth, it had no voice, now words. Just a lot of air and longing." (Kidd 243) The action in which Lily is physically unable to pronounce her words indicates that Lily's insight of herself as worthless is deeply imbedded since it affects her outside the mental state. Whenever Deborah is stated where Lily is not incorporated with unconditional love, Lily creates a fantasy of it being in her way and no one is able to cease it. Lily is unable to listen or forgive what she does not want to listen to the stories of Deborah when August sits down to explain.
