I am very excited to offer you, my dear readers, a sneak preview of the next volume in my memoir. It is entitled, “What Took You So Long?” and I look forward to sharing the journey to its publication with you.
I entered the world one Sunday afternoon in mid-February 1948, the firstborn child of an unwed fifteen-year-old. Her Catholic parents were surprised by my arrival. So, says my mother, was she. It was the age of secrets, and my mother’s family kept many. As a result, my grandmother hadn’t bothered to tell my mother the facts of life. When she and my grandfather saw my mother’s stomach swelling, they assumed she had been eating too much pasta. Imagine how shocked they were when I appeared! As first-generation Italian immigrants, they were ashamed that their daughter had given birth out of wedlock. I’m told that when my mother asked to hold me, the nurse replied, “No, this baby’s going to be adopted.” And so I was. The family practice of omerta (an Italian code of silence) began that day and continued for nearly fifty-seven years.
Book Summary
On September 27, 2004, I went in search of my birth family to find information about my health history. Instead, I discovered an entire new family when I was nearly fifty-seven years old. My memoir describes our initial meeting and the relationship we’ve built in the years that followed.
http://bit.ly/1rV2rl5 Link to Silver Award for first paragraph contest.