Posts Tagged ‘From Darkness to Light’

Summers in Sombra

There’s a new book in the family and I love it dearly. My big brother Dave has written a heartfelt and healing memoir that begins with our early childhood together and carries him into the present day. From Darkness to Light is filled with discoveries and insights, sorrows and triumphs. Dave decided not to “die with his music still in him” by waking up the writing gift he had long suppressed. Here’s a summer memory from our childhood that I hope you will enjoy as much as I have:

“While living in foster care in Mt. Clemens, Michigan, Wayne and I didn’t get to see Mother or our older brother Jim very often—certainly not often enough. One reason was that Mother didn’t drive and had no way of getting to us. The separation of our family tore at her heart. Mother worked at Chrysler, earning the typical female wage for whatever job she was doing. In those days, men made almost double the wages paid to females for the same job. My mother’s greatest wish was to somehow reunite her family again. With this in mind, she finally decided to marry Bill Drury, a fellow she’d been dating for a couple of years.

Bill’s mother Cora owned a cottage in Sombra, Ontario. I remember all of us going there in the summer of 1948. For Wayne and me, it was as if we were visiting some kind of Fantasy Island. We’d swim, fish, play baseball, listen to ballgames on the radio, and even learn to play pinochle.

Jim and Wayne seemed able to swim right away, but it didn’t come easy for me. Continue Reading