Sunlight on My Shadow 5 Star Review of My Memoir on Amazon by Joe McNally
Something Blessed This Way Comes Posted on August 15, 2013
This book will be widely read in the coming years. Judy’s book is a rare combination; fine writing, a heart-wrenching story, and a salve for the soul of the sensitive. Everyone takes different things from life…a book read, a movie watched, a news article, a chance meeting, a dream. We act and interpret according to our characters and experiences. Sixty years ago (as I write this), my mother was moving into the last 48 hours of her pregnancy with the first of her eleven sons, me. She bore 4 daughters too, and she lies buried within shouting distance of where I sit. She was 47 when she died; killed, I thought for many years, by her Catholic faith, and its fierce hunger for more Catholics. We, her children were left with our own demons.
What I took from Judy’s book was this: in matters of the heart, of guilt and of shame, of crushing regret, seek not forgiveness from others, turn first to yourself. It is not so much the story of an unwed mother, a teenage pregnancy, a culture of banishing the black sheep lest the neighbours talk (God help us all…how many tears have been shed for the sake of ‘what people might think’?); it is a lesson in how to value yourself, how to heal yourself.
Judy’s long-seeping wound was inflicted by society. To the millions of other Judys of both genders who will read this book, your wounds will not necessarily be from lost children, but, with luck, Judy’s simple solution will help you find peace. Her story takes a long time to tell…she will take you to her childhood bedroom, her school, the Rocky Mountains, Big Sur, her subtly skilful writing carrying you through the years right alongside her. The story is long, but the message is short…forgive yourself.
Thank you, Judy. And good luck. We have never met. But we have.
I too loved your book. Well until the end. I really hated you saying that Karen’s parents were meant to be her parents. And then I feel judgmental against you and I hate that in myself. And as a mother who lost her child to adoption, because I was unmarried, I understand about loving the child as she turned out. And how else could she be that person without the trials and triumphs of her life with the family she got.
Anyway, you are a wonderful writer. I liked how you were so loved in your family of origin. I love how you walked to your own drummer. But then in the end it’s like you’re so afraid of losing Karen you buy into the adoption machine’s dogma that young poor people should give their kids away. Oh there I go again. You probably were not doing that. It’s my spin on things.
Anywho, thank you for telling your story. It’s good for people to realize that giving up a child is a life long event, traumatic to all. Maybe if Karen was in tune with the trauma of losing you more, mention of the trauma to adoptees would be included. I missed that in the book.
H Barb, Thank you for your thoughtful comments about my book. I understand your disappointment at my letter at the end of the book to Karen’s parents, saying that perhaps she was meant to be theirs. As a mom who has relinquished a baby, I can see that this could be seen as minimizing your loss. And certainly as nature dictates, all babies are meant to be in their birth mother’s arms. I believe that. But when it can’t be so or when it happens to not be so, and looking back, it is comforting for me to believe that things happened beyond my direct control. And seeing the beautiful girl that is Karen, today, I see that she was raised well and had all the opportunities that abound being raised in a well cared-for home. This is not to say that I still don’t grieve for what I missed in her life.I do not believe that all young, unmarried girls should give up their babies. This is a sacred and personal choice. What I do believe is that it should be an informed choice and not done because of fear of “what people will say” or other less substantial reasons. For me, I did not make an informed choice. It was the only path open to me (or so I thought) and I believe this is why it took me 40 years to deal with this trauma. Bless you, dear birth mom. I know your sorrow. I do not wish to minimize it in any way.