And it never left her daughter either. It just stayed hidden in her mind until it was woken up by a similar experience. All of this is basically a metaphor for the author's own mental, physical and spiritual awakening. She had lived much of her life in fear that the unexpected would swoop in and change her life just as it had when her mother died. But now that she is experiencing some of the same types of things that her mother went through, a change occurs within her that lets her see that living in fear is no way to live. Her mother had always had a great passion for life and she did not live in fear. In fact, when she had to go to the dentist when she was 18 "she had no concern except the hope that it would cost no more than she had in her purse." It had not even occurred to her mother that she might be risking...

She was only worried if she would be able to afford to have her tooth pulled. However, Dorothy did not have the benefit of that naive outlook because she had her mother's stories and experiences inside her, telling her that horrible things could actually happen.
After Dorothy awakens from her surgery unharmed, she cannot help but change her attitude towards life. The experience makes her realize that the lesson she should have learned from her mother was not to live in fear, but rather that every moment needs to be lived to the fullest. After all, "a day lost is a day gone forever." Dorothy learned through this experience that worry and fear are a waste of time and that the fact that unexpected things can happen should make a person strive to never waste a moment of their…