Finishing

Two years of outpouring, six years of shaping, twelve main revisions, and I still wasn’t done. Insightful friends read the book. With their feedback, I continued honing the story line, dispensing with superfluous cuteness and reining in secondary characters. I combed through the book again and again, tinkering with words and phrases, learning to trust my own voice.

Finally, I started to think I was done. Multiple times I thought I was done, but after letting the book rest, I could see there was still more to do. In some areas I needed to go deeper. I steeled myself to re-visit my mother’s role--her alcohol-induced dementia, but also her younger years, which helped me find a bit of resolution. I’d resisted her for a long time.

I had to force myself to add the hardest parts: Ron’s brush with mental illness and our marital difficulties. Both are compressed, so as not to take over Sandy’s story. But it was fallout from and part of the picture of our life with Sandy. Many families of the mentally ill often deal in isolation with living hell. The stress ends many marriages.

I hope we become more willing to grapple with the complex topics of mental illness and fetal alcohol brain damage.

As I send SANDY MY NAME out into the world, my hope is that her story will convey both the tragedy and danger of prenatal alcohol exposure. Her life should have been different. For all our sakes, we need to do better. I hope the world will take notice.