Not just a tale of pain, although there is pain, nor one of easy resolution, although there is eventual closure, this book recounts the author's slow journey from an adoption that left him longing for his biological mother and wondering about his biological father. Discovering, while in high school, his mother's identity, years later he found that of his biological father, Lionel Durand, a Black man, born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Suddenly the author realized the source of his own immediate empathy with Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights movement he led. Recovering painfully from his years of estrangement and loss, the author shares the often-shocking details of his adoption, and the therapies that brought him healing, therapies helpful not only to adoptees but to all who need healing from emotional suffering and losses of all kinds. With a heart "stretched large" by his own experience, the author has traveled to El Salvador and Mexico to accompany the many there who are suffering from collective trauma, poverty and discrimination, victims of systemic injustice, wounded yet unbowed. Finally, with filial admiration, the author traces the life of his beloved father, Lionel Durand, an internationally acclaimed newsman and journalist, who fought in the French Resistance during World War II, and whose struggles for peace and justice mirror those of our own day. Welcome to this reading journey and its wondrous surprises!
Not just a tale of pain, although there is pain, nor one of easy resolution, although there is eventual closure, this book recounts the author's slow journey from an adoption that left him longing for his biological mother and wondering about his biological father. Discovering, while in high school, his mother's identity, years later he found that of his biological father, Lionel Durand, a Black man, born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Suddenly the author realized the source of his own immediate empathy with Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights movement he led. Recovering painfully from his years of estrangement and loss, the author shares the often-shocking details of his adoption, and the therapies that brought him healing, therapies helpful not only to adoptees but to all who need healing from emotional suffering and losses of all kinds. With a heart "stretched large" by his own experience, the author has traveled to El Salvador and Mexico to accompany the many there who are suffering from collective trauma, poverty and discrimination, victims of systemic injustice, wounded yet unbowed. Finally, with filial admiration, the author traces the life of his beloved father, Lionel Durand, an internationally acclaimed newsman and journalist, who fought in the French Resistance during World War II, and whose struggles for peace and justice mirror those of our own day. Welcome to this reading journey and its wondrous surprises!
