Dusky weaves the personal with the political

Janet Mason Ellerby

Lorraine's new memoir brings together her story as well as the larger tale of adoption in the 20th mid-century and the imperative for change. This is the message of  Janet Ellerby's engaging review of Lorraine's new memoir,

Hole In My Heart, published this week in the CUB Communicator.--jane

“Until I had answers, I would be stuck in a mire of remorse and recrimination...I could not move forward into my next act, until I found her.” Thus writes Lorraine Dusky in her compelling new memoir, Hole In My Heart: memoir and report from the fault lines of adoption. She continues: “For mothers like me, adoption has no closure as long as we do not know what happened to our children.”

At the heart of Dusky’s memoir lie the emotional and psychological wounds natural mothers must endure after capitulating to adoption, whether open or closed. But closed adoption, Dusky argues convincingly, is especially egregious. It is not only exploitive and cruel but ultimately legally and morally wrong.

How the daughter I gave up forever changed my life

Lorraine

When did I decide that I was never going to have another child, or more correctly, when I did I know that I never would?

As soon as my daughter was born.

I knew this in my bones. I didn't voice this to anyone, and at the time my daughter's father, Patrick, kept saying that we would be together. Later. After she was given up is what he meant.

Oprah reveals she has half-sister; her mother was afraid to admit the secret

So Oprah has a sister! Given up for adoption! Reunited today on her talk show! From the Los Angeles Times: 

"Oprah Winfrey never knew her half-sister Patricia existed until around Thanksgiving, calling the secret sister a “bombshell family secret that left me speechless.” Holding back tears on her television talk show today, Winfrey acknowledged that “I thought nothing could surprise me anymore, but let me tell you, today I was wrong.”