Searching for Mom: A Memoir

by Sara Easterly, Linda Easterly (Contribution by)

Overview

Searching for Mom is a "disarmingly honest" mother-daughter story. Sara Easterly spent a lifetime looking for the perfect mother. As an adoptee she had difficulties attaching to her mother, struggled with her faith, lived the effects of intergenerational wounding, and felt an inherent sense of being unwanted that drove her to perfectionism, suicidal ideations, and fantasy mothers. When she became a mom, her search to find and become "the perfect mother" intensified ... until her mother's death launched a spiritual epiphany. Sara's perspective as an adoptee offers insight for anyone in the adoption constellation. And her hopeful story with themes of belonging, family, forgiveness, and being known are universally relevant to all mothers and daughters.

Praise for Searching for Mom:

"As an adoptive mom four times over, I'm hungry for the perspective of adult adoptees. Sara Easterly's Searching for Mom is powerfully delivered. Sara's vulnerable writing, backed up by research and supported by scripture, allowed me a valuable glimpse into the secret places in the hearts of my children."
--Shannan Martin, Author of The Ministry of Ordinary Places and Falling Free

"I entered into Sara Easterly's story expecting a riveting narrative--which it is, to be sure. What I didn't expect was a story that would speak to me so personally. Searching for Mom is, on the surface, a memoir about adoption. Beyond that, though, it's also a book about our common quest for wholeness, meaning, connection, belonging, and truth. Sara explores these deeply universal themes with unflinching honesty, authenticity, and vulnerability, which means this book will speak straight to your heart and soul--whether you are an adoptee or not."
--Michelle DeRusha, Author of True You: Letting Go of Your False Self to Uncover the Person God Created

"A touching story of raw daughter-mother attachment with all its imperfections and heartaches, together with surprising twists and redemptive forgiveness. It rings true because it is truly delivered."
--Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D., Founder, Neufeld Institute, and best-selling author of Hold On to Your Kids

"Fiercely personal, Sara's memoir exposes the cracks in her formerly sugarcoated adoption story. Sara perseveres in seeking the truth, revealing the painful wounds of adoption loss. We follow her journey to healing with both her mothers, which unexpectedly culminates in a newfound understanding of God's mothering."
--Haley Radke, Creator and host of Adoptees On podcast

"Sara has written a disarmingly honest memoir about pursuing truth--truth about herself, her faith, her family, and even truth about her pursuit of truth. She beautifully conveys that a genuine pursuit of truth becomes the soil in which healing love grows. A worthwhile read from beginning to end."
--Richard Dahlstrom, Senior Pastor of Bethany Community Church and author of The Map is Not the Journey and The Colors of Hope

"A beautiful piece of work. Sara speaks the truth in this book and the truth sets people free!"
--Sundee Frazier, Award-winning author of Check All That Apply and the Cleo Edison Oliver series

"Sara Easterly has created a fearlessly beautiful story of a daughter's search for a kind of perfect love she actually--in the end and much to her own surprise--finds."
--Anne Heffron, Author of You Don't Look Adopted

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780578601953
Publisher:	Heart Voices
Publication date:	11/19/2019
Pages:	318
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.71(d)

About the Author

Sara Easterly is mom to two tenacious daughters and daughter of two amazing moms-both her adoptive mom and her birth mother. She enjoys supporting other mothers in their journeys and has a passion for helping others understand the often-misunderstood hearts of adopted children. Sara's children's book, Lights, Camera, Fashion!, illustrated by Jaime Temairik, garnered an Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Gold Seal Award and Parents' Choice Silver Honor, among other awards. Her essays and articles have been published by Dear Adoption, Feminine Collective, Her View From Home, Godspace, Neufeld Institute, Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), and Seattle Neufeld Community. Previously Sara led one of the largest chapters of the SCBWI, and she was recognized as SCBWI Member of the Year. Find her online at www.saraeasterly.com.

Table of Contents

Introduction

PART 1: MOTHER LONGING

1-Taking Flight

2-Butterfly Deliverance

3-Unwanted

4-Storm Runner

5-Ideations

A Letter from Mom

6-Secret Keeper

7-Chrysalis Crisis

8-Love Longing

9-Hatchings

10-The Mysteries of Look-Alikes

11-Lofty Ideals

Advice to a Too-Busy Mama

12-Purpose in the Potential

13-Lung Wings

The Big Day

14-Wingless

15-Left Behind

16-Heart-First

17-Camouflage Removal

A Letter from Mom

18-Meaning Everywhere

19-Kite Enlightenment

20-Wanted

21-Death of a Dream Mother

PART 2: HONOR YOUR MOTHER

22-Bridge Crossing

23-Mom Lottery

Special Person

24-Chasing Rainbows

25-Mother Whiners

26-Drama Desire

27-Transplanting Trouble

Health Update

28-Prodigal Daughter

29-The Vulnerable Path to Forgiveness

30-ALL of You

Blessed to the Max

31-Making It

PART 3: GOD, THE MOTHER

32-Calm Before the Storm

33-Only Me

34-A New Lifeline

35-Alpha & Omega

You Are My Child

36-I Felt the Light

37-A Time to Laugh

38-Looking Up

39-Writing Mr. Right

Reflection of Ten Years

40-Saving the World

Surrender

41-Footprints

42-Next-Best Thing

43-Flying Home

Epilogue

Butterfly Heaven

Acknowledgments

Notes

Editorial Reviews

"I entered into Sara Easterly's story expecting a riveting narrative--which it is, to be sure. What I didn't expect was a story that would speak to me so personally. Searching for Mom is, on the surface, a memoir about adoption. Beyond that, though, it's also a book about our common quest for wholeness, meaning, connection, belonging, and truth. Sara explores these deeply universal themes with unflinching honesty, authenticity, and vulnerability, which means this book will speak straight to your heart and soul--whether you are an adoptee or not."
--Michelle DeRusha, Author of True You: Letting Go of Your False Self to Uncover the Person God Created

"A touching story of raw daughter-mother attachment with all its imperfections and heartaches, together with surprising twists and redemptive forgiveness. It rings true because it is truly delivered."
--Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D., Founder, Neufeld Institute, and best-selling author of Hold On to Your Kids

"Fiercely personal, Sara's memoir exposes the cracks in her formerly sugarcoated adoption story. Sara perseveres in seeking the truth, revealing the painful wounds of adoption loss. We follow her journey to healing with both her mothers, which unexpectedly culminates in a newfound understanding of God's mothering."
--Haley Radke, Creator and host of Adoptees On podcast

"Sara has written a disarmingly honest memoir about pursuing truth--truth about herself, her faith, her family, and even truth about her pursuit of truth. She beautifully conveys that a genuine pursuit of truth becomes the soil in which healing love grows. A worthwhile read from beginning to end."
--Richard Dahlstrom, Senior Pastor of Bethany Community Church and author of The Map is Not the Journey and The Colors of Hope--named a Best Book by Christianity Today

"A beautiful piece of work. Sara speaks the truth in this book and the truth sets people free!"
--Sundee Frazier, Award-winning author of Check All That Apply and the Cleo Edison Oliver series

"Sara Easterly has created a fearlessly beautiful story of a daughter's search for a kind of perfect love she actually--in the end and much to her own surprise--finds."
--Anne Heffron, Author of You Don't Look Adopted and founder of Write or Die

From the Publisher

2019-12-20
A woman finds God and learns forgiveness as she confronts her contentious relationship with her adoptive mother in this memoir.

As she approached her 40th birthday, publicist and event planner Easterly (Lights, Camera, Action, 2007) was facing the imminent death of her mother. For many years, the author had been trying to come to terms with her feelings of anger toward her parent, and over the past two, their relationship had become especially difficult. Now, she was determined to resolve her conflicting emotions and help her mom negotiate a peaceful, loving passage to the next world. The author was adopted when she was just two days old—"a ‘grey-market adoption' with shady circumstances," she writes—and although she knew of her adopted status, she and her mother almost never discussed it. Her mom relied on the conventions of the day, telling her simply that she was specially "chosen." "But ‘chosen' was nowhere near what I felt inside," Easterly writes. "Inside, I felt abandoned, discarded, unimportant." She did well in school, but was timid and shy, with numerous fears (including a terror of thunderstorms) that her mother would shrug off with humor. As an adult, Easterly began reading the works of Nancy Newton Verrier, "an adoptive mother and psychotherapist focused on separation and loss in adoption." She was especially taken with Verrier's theory of the "Primal Wound," described by that author as "the death of the baby soul….the overall feeling is a betrayal of the universe, of God, of the cosmos, of the infinite being." Readers may or may not accept the theory that a 2-day-old infant experiences psychological trauma at the time of adoption. However, Easterly's memoir contains a great deal of valuable information that may be helpful to adoptive parents, and to adoptees who feel a loss of biological connection. Some readers may find that the later sections, in which Easterly shares her two-way conversations with God, stretch credulity, but devoutly religious ones will likely take comfort in her spiritual account.

A complicated but vividly portrayed search for identity.

Kirkus Reviews