A Life of My Own

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Donna Wilhelm. A Life of My Own

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A Life of My Own

A Memoir

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That day, I’d learned something only Aunt Mamie would tell me: Reggie was adopted. Edith never talked about anything private. And even though I was young, I knew that there was something forbidden about this conversation—and the word adoption. Mother and Dad avoided it like a curse word. During my childhood anything related to adoption was kept dark and secret.

Hunched over my childhood desk under the kitchen window, I retreated into an imaginary world where everything was perfect. In one of the drawers, I kept my treasure chest made from a cigar box, its lid covered with pictures of fashion models torn out of glossy magazines. Inside was my collection of my hand-drawn paper dolls. “Dress like me! Look like me!” they compelled. Every one of my dolls was a fantasy image of me. The cardboard box was so overstuffed with my treasures that I had to patch it together with layers of Scotch tape. None of my paper dolls ever felt lonely or ugly. None of them suffered verbal or physical abuse from an angry mother. In that ideal world, I had a mother who assured me every day, “You are beautiful! You are smart! You are talented!”

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