My book, Sunlight on My Shadow, begged to be written. It sat there for years, this quiet weight on my heart. It was a story bound in secrecy that was there yet obscured by years of neglect.
It was oppressive holding this story inside of me.
So about 5 years ago, I started tapping on the keyboard. The words flowed easily but when I thought of anyone reading what I wrote, I cringed and the words dried up. So I just wrote it for myself, pretending no one would ever read it. It seemed the only way to keep the words flowing onto the page and I knew the writing was good for my heart and soul.
During the process, I remembered the painful dichotomy that I lived when I was a teen. I had the great pull of first love and wanting closeness and sex with this high school boy but I was haunted by my catholic training which taught me that sex outside of marriage was a grave sin. I was torn to shreds by the pull of my desires and what I had been taught was RIGHT. Finally, I rationalized that I no longer believed in the catholic rules. But it wasn’t easy to shake what I had been fed since I was a baby and I secretly hated myself for my lack of self control and weakness at not being a good catholic girl.
As I wrote my story, I re-lived the dark guilty place of losing my virginity and the horror of my condition as I attended Regina High, concealing my thickening belly for five months, holding my uniform skirt together with looped rubber bands.
While writing I revisited that home for unwed mothers. Back then, I had expected when the baby was born that I’d be free. I imagined myself resuming my solid place of honor in society as a good college bound student. but instead when I heard the baby’s first cry, I fell in love with her and was hopelessly attached.
But I couldn’t acknowledge that I loved her and wanted her because that wasn’t in the plan. I just put one foot in front of the other and let them carry her away to her adoptive parents.
When I came back to school in my senior year, I pretended I had recovered from a kidney disease and was now better. Then, I suppressed any gushes of emotion that accompanied my memories of the baby. The minute I felt any grief, I switched my thoughts to nothingness. I built this wall around me posted with “do not enter.” I had a secret to protect.
Of course the shield made me half alive because along with not feeling the grief and shame, I also wasn’t able to feel any of the joy or light heartedness that a young girl of 17 should be feeling.
So I was damaged. I went through the motions of being ok. I plastered a smile on my face and graduated from high school with my class. I talked to no one about it. Not my friends, not my parents, and not myself.
But writing changed all that for me. I came to love and understand that me-child and I forgave her. If not one person bought my book –it still would have been the greatest thing I’ve done in my life because it changed who I am …
When you are able to walk in your own shoes, you find a strength and a confidence. You don’t have to couch words or slink with your tail between your legs because there is no longer anything to hide. You are just you. What a freedom that is. Secrets and shame are cancers to the spirit.
I hope this is the message that readers take away from Sunlight on My Shadow. Secrets rarely accomplish their intended duty of making you look better, because the part that is hidden causes a partial death of the spirit.
Bless the day I wrote the last word in my book. The binding strings of secrecy unwound and the story was out. I was finally able to grieve for the loss of my innocence and my baby girl by writing and talking to others about my story. As I revised the book for publication, I decided to keep the raw incriminating truths within the pages, because that was my very healing: Accepting my humanness and understanding that sweet teen age girl from 1967.
I’m grateful for writing my memoir and being done with the shame and secrecy.
Judy, I can’t tell you how much your book was like my own experience except you put into words what I couldn’t. All those inner feelings you felt and described were so much what I felt back in 1971 when I was forced to give up my son. I have since found him and our relationship has been very turbulent and that’s ok but my son also has inherited my mother’s mental illness. He is bipolar and can’t seem to get the right help he needs. This makes me very sad as all I wanted to do was find him happy and healthy. I just wanted to tell you that reading this book put a lot of my feelings in perspective. Thank you so much for writing your book.
Hi Denise. Thank you for your comment about my book. I was so scared to find out that my child might not have had a good life. This would make the reunion so very bittersweet. There certainly are no guarantees. I was happy to hear that you could relate to my feelings of being an unwed mom. It amazes me the bond that carries on between a mother and child even after years of separation. I wish that your son can find the help he needs and that you can have a meaningful relationship with him. Thank you for your kind words.
Just finished reading your book, so sad and brave. I did not know, when I began it, that you had lived in Glenview. I lived there too, as a child, on Glendale Road, and went to OLPH, but left when I was in sixth grade, when we moved to the east coast. By my reckoning, you must have been in first or second grade then. I looked at your school photo and recognized that blue serge uniform, worn so long ago. We may have passed in the hallways. I was stunned by your accounting of the priest giving “the lecture.” When I was there, the talk was given by a nun, and we girls were segregated from the boys. Thank you for writing your story. I’m glad it all turned out so well for you.
Hi Laura! How amazing that you went to OLPH. I remember Glendale Road. I lived over by Hackney’s on Harms. It sounds like you had a better introduction to the “talk.” It seemed like our sex education was the foundation for a lot of shame. Because I didn’t do what they told me I should be doing. UGH! I cringe just thinking about those classes.
Loved the book. Very well-written, easy-to-read, held my interest from start to finish. So sad and heart-breaking. My husband’s bio-mother placed him for adoption. She also was only sixteen when he was born. Glad Karen was in a loving home. My husband was not so fortunate. What to do, what to do, in this situation! All adoptions do not have story-book endings. But back to the book, I am very glad that I could read her insight into her predicament. Thank you for ‘spilling your guts’! Great read.
Hi Judy. Thanks for your note about my book. Yes, spilling my guts was a good way to put it. I did that and then gathered them up and put them back in a better place. I am sorry to hear that your husband had inadequate adoptive parents. We have no control over this in most circumstances. This is why I think open adoption and choosing the adoptive couple would make it better for all involved. But maybe the best choice is DON’T get pregnant under these circumstances. Well that is kind of a DUH!