The Memory Keeper's Daughter

Well I seem to be on a roll with my book reading goal for 2010. It is amazing where I find time to read but I carry a book in my purse so that whenever I have down time, like waiting in line at the pharmacy, or am on my lunch break at work I read and it has been so relaxing. Actually I have been feeling pretty good about stuff the past few weeks. Things at my job have changed and they are so much better. Unfortunately we had to let someone go in order to achieve this but it has benefited my entire team. It is amazing that one person can drag everyone else down. Since that person has been gone though it seems like a giant weight has been lifted off everyone. The mood and the tone are so much better.

 

Anyways back to the latest book that I have finished, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards. I really enjoyed this book. It is set back in the 60s and travels through this couples life after having twins, a girl and a boy. The husband, a doctor, delivers his children and discovers that the girl has Down syndrome. After having flashbacks to his childhood of his sister who died at the age of 12 due to a heart condition combined with her own Down syndrome he decides to tell his wife that the child has died. Can you imagine…going through life feeling this emptiness, this grief for losing a child, only for them to still be alive. Well as you can imagine this did not work out so well for the doctor. It caused his wife so much grief and pain and carrying the guilt of lying around with him for all of those years did not fair well in their marriage. As I was reading this book I just kept thinking of my friends that have lost children either at birth or shortly their after. All that grief and pain and sadness. How selfish of this man to think that he was going to spare his wife the pain of raising a Down’s child. Instead of sparing her he created a wall in between them and caused her so much pain, not to mention what he did to his son who thought that his twin sister had died at birth, his birth as well. This book is also a movie that aired on Lifetime a while back. I DVRed it with the intention of watching it right away but then I just never got around to it. While I was lying in bed all day yesterday from having the nasty stomach flu I decided to watch it.  I am glad that I read the book first, the book of course was so much better.  The movie left out so many things and the timeline was a little off.  It was still a pretty good movie though the book was WAY better!