I have some friends I’d like you to meet – Kavita, Jasu, Somer, Krishnan, and Asha. I met them here at the beach on vacation; I’ve only known them for a few days. As much as I’d like to speak to them and allow you to do the same, we can’t; they are alive only in a well painted portrait of words. But, they’ve spoken to me.
There aren’t many books in which I find myself drawn in some way to all the characters. Maybe one or two resonate with me, not all. Shilpi Somaya Gowda’s Secret Daughter
A poor rural Indian family unable to provide for more than one child and knowing for varied reasons (as is the case in many places) that that one child needed to be a boy. And, a California couple, both doctors, unable to heal their most emotional case yet–their own infertility. Their families become forever intertwined through adoption.
It is a story of motherhood and of the discovery of what motherhood really means. You follow the journey as an Indian-American girl sees life in a new way as she learns her own story and the love of her past for the first time and concludes that sometimes “the family you create is more important than the one you are born into.”
Part of me wishes I were the reporter and that I could sit down in a crowded restaurant in Bombay with Kavita over a cup of hot chai and hear more. Maybe I’d bring Lydia with me and let her hear it all too, see it in Kavita’s own eyes. I know that her story of commitment and surrender is not Lydia’s story–we don’t know what her story is despite my efforts to learn more. And, I know better than to pretend that they are alike even if Kavita were Chinese instead of Indian. Still, I imagine the meeting and the blessing it would be to us.
Part of me wishes I could travel to California and join Somer at Starbucks over a cup of iced coffee. I’d ask her how she would have parented differently knowing what she knows now. Though our worldviews differ, and I have four little ones while she has one who is grown, we share the common bond of raising a daughter we wanted before she was even born whose skin, eyes, and frame do not resemble ours but who fits perfectly in our arms.
Part of me wishes we could be instantly transported to wherever Asha’s work has her now and talk while we walk together in the early morning. Asha’s self-discovery is not based first on her position before her Maker as we pray Lydia’s will be. Yet, I wish I could ask her her thoughts on language classes and holidays and traditions and searching.
But, I must settle for the page before me, pages about women and families based only on research, women and families who do not exist though represent thousands and thousands around the world, pages I will likely read again perhaps along with Lydia in 12 years or so. All so that as she enters adolescence and asks more questions, and I’m in a new season of parenting an adolescent girl with a history I do not share, I’m there as questions come up. Maybe I’ll be able to answer some, and I’ll simply be with her when I can’t, while pointing her to Truth all along.
I want you to read this book. I just do. I want lots of you to read this book so I can either sit down and chat with you about it or email about it since my husband no longer wants to hear me talk about it (he keeps reminding me that this people are not real).
I can be sure that one of you will get to read Secret Daughter
To enter, leave a comment on this post with why you’d like to win or what interests you about this book.
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I won’t make you become a follower here for an extra entry to win. But, hey, it would be nice.
Enter before Friday, July 29th at 10pm EST. I’ll choose a winner randomly using random.org after that. And expect an email from me asking you how you liked it after a little while, okay?
