Augusta, Gone: A True Story

The story of a girl who is doing everything to hurt herself and a mother who would try anything to try to save her.

True, she had stopped coming down for breakfast. Stayed up in her room, ran out the door late for school, missed the bus and had to have a ride. But you think, well, that's how they are, aren't they, teenagers? And you try to remember how you were, but you were different and the times were different and it was so long ago. And she's suddenly so angry at you, but then, another time, she's just the same. She's just your little girl. You sit with her and you talk about something, or you go shopping for school clothes and everything seems all right. And you forget how you stood in her room and how the center of your stomach felt so cold. When you found the cigarette. When you found the blue pipe. When you found the little bag she said was aspirin.

Martha Tod Dudman served as President and General manager of Dudman Communications, a group of radio stations, from 1990 to 1999. Now a professional fundraiser, she lives in Northeast Harbor, Maine, with her son and daughter.