My much admired professor, mentor, and friend, Dr. Molly McCaffrey, launched her memoir, You Belong to Us, today. I preordered my copy and received it a few days ago and have been absolutely blown away by the emotional journey captured within its
pages.
Adopted at the age of 6 weeks, Molly grew up knowing she’d been adopted but loving the life she’d lived with her adoptive parents–her real parents.
In her late twenties, out of curiosity about who and where she came from, she hesitantly began the steps required to find her birth mother. Her memoir emotionally chronicles the fear, curiosity, confusion, guilt, and anger that guided her through finding and meeting her birth family.
Her experience was especially emotional because, not only did she find a birth mom, she also found out that, after putting her up for adoption, her birth mother and birth father reconciled, got married, and had four other children who were all Molly’s full-blooded siblings. Instead of finding one person, she found an entire family, most of whom never even knew she existed… some of whom would like to pretend she didn’t.
The book is a very emotional read that begs the question… How much does our biology affect who we become? And is it possible for one person to heal a thirty-year-old “wound” that the other person sees as a blessing?
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the human condition and both our abilities and inabilities to accept, adapt, and move on.
You Belong to Us can be purchased here or at Barnes and Noble.