Wednesday, February 4, 2009

The Memory Keeper's Daughter


I am reading the book The MemoryKeeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards. I was talking to my mother about the book because she lost a baby at birth and she also had a Down's syndrome child. She told me how it took such a long time to get over her baby daughter's death. I know I was only six years old at the time but I was impressed enough to name my first daughter, Mary Elizabeth, after a sister I had never known. My brother, Tommy, was born in 1956, the same year as the babies in the book. Mom told me about how she was part of a group formed to get the public school system to provide educational opportunities for retarded children. One story she told me was that my brother and I had worked with Tommy to make sure he could put rings on a peg. When she met with the head of education for the county he had Tommy perform this same task. Tommy picked up a ring, held it to his eye, looked at the director and said "peek a boo" Apparently this book really tells it like it is.

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