I could never quite put my finger on it.

[user_user]

https://vivfortoday.com/relationships/dear-mom/

"They say you left a gap.

Over the years, therapists tried to get me talking about the massive gap you’d left in my life, but I couldn’t tap into it. For a while, I didn’t believe them. I truly thought they were looking for something that simply wasn’t there. Then I had Anna.

As I reflected on the bond she and I shared by the time she was three years old, I thought about you a lot. About the bond you and I must have shared and about the gap you must have left, even though I could never quite put my finger on it. Mostly, though, I thought about how hard it must have been for you to know that you were going to leave me. Leave us."

Question:

(1) What does "it" here refer to? Only the gap (you must have left) or both the bond (you and I must have shared) and the gap?

(2) Does "even though I could never quite put my finger on it" here mean "even though I could never quite put my finger on it 'back then or at one time (before she had Anna)'"? Isn't this sentence misleading without such a phrase? Without the phrase, doesn't it sound like she could still never quite put her finger on it even when she was reflecting and thinking a lot about her mom (after she had Anna, not before)?

 

[emsr2d2]

1. It means the gap.
2. Throughout therapy, she was told there must be a gap (a hole) that her mum had left in her life when she died, but she (the person in therapy) could never really identify this gap that therapists kept talking about.

 

[user_user]

1. It means the gap.
2. Throughout therapy, she was told there must be a gap (a hole) that her mum had left in her life when she died, but she (the person in therapy) could never really identify this gap that therapists kept talking about.

So you're saying "even though I could never quite put my finger on it" here means "even though I could never quite put my finger on it back then when I was receiving therapy", right? It doesn't mean she still couldn't put her finger on the gap while she was reflecting and thinking a lot about her mom to write that letter, right?

 

[emsr2d2]

So you're saying "even though I could never quite put my finger on it" here means "even though I could never quite put my finger on it back then when I was receiving therapy", right? It doesn't mean she still couldn't put her finger on the gap while she was reflecting and thinking a lot about her mom to write that letter, right?

If she was talking about the time while she was writing the letter, she'd have said "I can't quite put my finger on it". By using "couldn't", it's clear that she's talking about the past.

 

[user_user]

If she was talking about the time while she was writing the letter, she'd have said "I can't quite put my finger on it". By using "couldn't", it's clear that she's talking about the past.

I never said "while" writing. Read again. Before writing, she reflected on and thought about the bond, about the gap, and "couldn't put her finger on it." Even after having Anna and even right before writing that letter, she still "couldn't fully understand it." My interpretation of "can never put my finger on it" here is: When she was talking to therapists=> she couldn't understand it; after having Anna and before writing that letter=>still couldn't fully understand it. Instead, "though," she "mostly" thought about how hard it must have been for her~.