Sunlight on My Shadow: My New Book

I just completed a three year project.  It is a book called, "Sunlight on My Shadow"  It tells the story of my teenage pregnancy in 1967.  It was kept a secret for many years.  I went to a home for unwed mothers and gave my baby up for adoption.  It seemed like an easy thing, just put it in my past and forget about it.  Nobody knew the real reason I was absent from Regina Dominican High School for the last two months of my junior year.

I wasn't able to forget.  I knew I had to come clean and start talking about my experience.  It was just too big for me to ignore.  So about ten years after the event, I started talking.  It came up in small conversations.  I was full of shame and regret.  Then about three years ago I had this yearning to write my story so I started.  At first I couldn't remember anything about the home for unwed mothers.  I couldn't even remember the year the baby was born, but gradually, like rain brings life to the desert, as I wrote, I started to remember.

Now I have my story completed.  It is a sad story, but some say uplifting.  I didn't love spending all that time writing about that dark time in my life.  The tears dripped on my keyboard more than once as I laid down the words and recalled the loss and shame from giving away my baby.  I kept at it.  I read excerpts from my story to the writers group up in Solon Springs Wisconsin as i completed the sections.  My dear fellow writer-friends responded with tears, claps, and gasps as I read out loud.  They encouraged me to keep going, to keep writing so I did.  I love my friends from Solon.  Such cheerleaders!  You know as you write, you have no idea if it is any good or if people will want to read it.

Now I have given the book to my brothers and sister and a few friends and my daughters and the love pours in.  I am so thankful for their opening acceptance and love for me after exposing my deepest regrets and sorrows.  I was so vulnerable in writing this secret story.  I shook as I read it out loud.  My voice squeezed into a pip squeaky little string of strained sound.  It was hard to read.  It was hard to write.  But yet each day, I looked forward to it.  Joe often said, "Did you write today?"  and I'd say, "Yes" and he'd say, "Good, because that makes you happy."  and it did.  Now that I am done with my story, I need a new project, so I think it will be this blog.  Onward.