Sparks Will Fly!
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As an adopted person; once an Air Force dependent, I write about loss, separation, impermanence, and adoptees' rights to truthful identity and natural heritage.
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Sparks Will Fly!
'I Must Have Wandered: An Adopted Air Force Daughter' new e-book version is on its way!
Travel in this captivating journey of self-discovery and triumph over adversity through a collage of vignettes, poetry, lyrical prose, letters, fragments, and photos in this poignant story of a post-WWII South Carolina infant girl's relinquishment and her adoption by an Air Force couple. Her 1950s childhood is marked by maternal severance and military family separations. She comes of age amid the heightened anxiety of the turbulent 1960s. The complexity of primal trauma, guilt, grief, and the effects of her father's intelligence officer's role; its culture of confidentiality, secrecy, and discipline, as well as his religious piety, lead her to a desire to learn her origins. With the help of adoptee advocates, the barrier to her sealed birth records yields, and she embarks on a quest for her natural mother. Decades later, DNA testing leads her to a greater wealth of family, and she is closer to reconciling with the loss and privilege of her adopted life. An inspirational must-read. (Bibliography and Resources).
About the Author:
Mary Ellen Gambutti was born at the start of the post-World War II Baby Scoop Era in 1951 in South Carolina, where there were numerous military installations, and was adopted by an Air Force couple. As an officer's dependent, her 1950s and '60s childhood was both privileged and transient. Many literary journals have published Mary Ellen's essays, and she has published five books. She writes about adopted life, adoptee rights, her career in horticulture, and her recovery from a hemorrhagic stroke. She and her husband are retired in Lewes, Delaware with their aging chihuahua and toy poodle puppy.