Separate Lives
Lynn Assimacopoulos, 2015
Dorrance Publishing
38 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781480912472
Summary
This true story is about learning that my son's friend who had been adopted as a baby wanted to search for his birthparents. He was especially anxious about this since his adoptive parents both suddenly passed away in a car accident.
I agreed to try to help him because I had done some genealogy searching on our family however I did not know if this would be of help or not.
For months I scanned through phone books, sent letters to anyone I could think of and personally visited everything from the local library to the National Archives in Washington, D.C. which resulted in nothing but a lack of any information.
Even the person in the National Archives told me it was useless because a woman usually marries and changes her name which makes it nearly impossible to trace.
Then a random internet search produced a surprising possible clue and allowed me to begin the fascinating but uncertain journey in the search. All this is documented in my book Separated Lives. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth— April 23, 1939
• Where—Humboldt, Iowa, USA
• Education—B.S.N., University of Minnesota
• Currently—lives in Phoenix, Arizona
Lynn Assimacopoulos: Experienced in hospital ICU, home health, transcultural nursing care, nursing staff development, Red Cross volunteer Director and Nurse/Writer in long term care organization; have written for Nursing Journals, policy and procedure manuals for Nursing, Social Work, Activities, Dietary, Infection Control as well as several health related newsletters; have presented lectures on Cultural Awareness/Cultural Diversity and adult learning; worked with Federal Guidelines regarding consultations and interpretations for long term care facilities in several states; have been writing since 8 years old mainly poetry and short stories; have coordinated many health related workshops, conferences, study groups, refresher courses, seminars; member of National Honor Society, "Best Nursing Class Citizen", United Way "Best Volunteer" Award, received Best Media Award for Excellence in Journalism (Nursing print category); published several poems in book Follow the Piper (2011) and two non-fiction books: I Thought There Was A Road There (2000)- a collection of true life humorous short stories/situations relating to faith in God and current one—Separated Lives (2015). (From the author.)
Book Reviews
This book read like pages from Lynn's private diary as she details her thoughts, feelings, actions and interactions with Ryan before, during and after the search.... Lynn details their developing care, compassion and growing respect for one another, as both ride their individual emotional roller coasters.
Linda Schellentrager - Adoption Network Cleveland
I found Separated Lives highly engaging...and filled with natural emotional highs and lows about someone trying to uncover or take the lead in helping someone else discover who they really are and where they come from...in the journey to find their roots; I was impressed by both the author's tenacity, tactful but assertive methodology and empathy for her subject.
Paul A - Amazon Customer Review
This book describes her true-life search..is well written.
Lost Cousins Newsletter
Discussion Questions
1. How would you feel if your adopted child wanted to search for his/her birthparents?
2. Would you be willing to help your adopted child in their search?
3. If you had been adopted would you want to meet your birthparents?
4. Should adoption agencies be compelled to give adoptees more information than the law allows at the present time?
5. Is open or closed adoption more acceptable and why?
6. I know of a case where two parents adopted a brother and a sister but decided to return the sister to the adoption agency/home. How do you feel about this situation?
7. Should adopted children always be told that they are adopted and when is the best time to do this?
8. When reading the book what did you expect would happen?
9. What was the most surprising aspect of this book?
10. If you found someone’s birthparent(s) how would you approach them to tell his/her that you know about their placing their child for adoption?
11. Were you surprised by Ryan’s birthparents reactions?
12. Do you know of persons that actually found their birthparent(s); however, the birthparent(s) were not interested in having any kind of relationship with them?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)