Archive for 'German Adoptive Mother'

Pfingsten, White Asparagus, and Memories of Spring in Germany

Pfingsten, White Asparagus, and Memories of Spring in Germany

Two weekends ago, Germany celebrated Pfingsten, the feast of Ascension. The British name for it is Pentecost or Whitsun. It is a time the freshly blooming fields, the greening woods, hills, mountains, the flowering bushes and hedges are celebrated. The enchanting cuckoo and all other songbirds have returned. My thoughts tend to go to Germany in this verdant season. I arrived there with Mutti, my German mother on June 17, many decades ago. We left the boat that ...

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Parental White Privilege Does Benefit Interracial Adoptees

Parental White Privilege Does Benefit Interracial Adoptees

Last week, an article in the Huffington Post https://huff.to/1I0A0fj To The Lady Who Called my Toddler a Thug, written by Rachel Garlinghouse, a white mother who adopted a black boy, got my attention. Particularly because of her concern that her little boy, just because of his appearance was, innocently and not so innocently stereotyped by people whom she knew. It’s the US, I thought, and it’s a dangerous, racialized ...

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Women’s History Month: Part 2: Honoring The Mother I Loved.

Women’s History Month: Part 2: Honoring The Mother I Loved.

In the past few blogs I’ve written about wanting to love my birth mother Rosa, a woman I did not get to know. The mother who raised me, however, I knew and loved dearly.

She was 50 when she decided to keep me. her name was Esther, but I called her Mutti, for she was German. She was born in 1888, while Queen Victoria still ruled in England. Picture being raised by a Victorian woman! I could ...

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Dreams of my Birthmother Rosa

Dreams of my Birthmother Rosa

 

In writing my recent book, Split at the Root: A Memoir of Love and Lost Identity (Kindle) or Split at the Root: A Memoir of Love and Lost Identity, I tell the story of growing up within a culture and a race that was different to my own. Here’s an excerpt:

The night I finished reading Jamaica Kincaid’s Annie John, the wind blowing outside my window ushered messages into my dreams.

I was Annie John, and had ...

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The Page Turners Reading Group Invites Author to Discuss her Book

The Page Turners Reading Group Invites Author to Discuss her Book

At her dinner party last fall, Kathleen mentioned that I had written a book and suggested that everyone should read it. Suzie read it and recommended it to her book club, The Page Turners. “It would be great if you could be there when we discuss Split,” she said after the book was accepted by the group, “but it won’t be until February. Would you like to join us then?” Now isn’t that a wonderful question? I know of several ...

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