Author and poet Kathleen Norris, well known for The Cloister Walk, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, and many other books, invites readers into an intensely personal narrative about her life with her younger sister, Rebecca Sue.
When Rebecca Sue—called Becky by her family and community—was born, all seemed well at first, but eventually it became clear that the extended labor her mother endured had deprived Becky’s brain of oxygen. Diagnosed with perinatal brain injury, Becky’s and her family’s lives were forever changed. Norris notes that though her sister’s brain had been damaged at birth, she “was intelligent enough to know what had happened to her.”
Norris masterfully gives voice to Becky’s thoughts, yearnings, and spiritual insights by structuring her book into short chapters based on the many questions and observations Becky wrote in letters to her parents as a young adult living away from home. Norris discovered the letters after her parents died. Becky’s questions include: “Will I always be slow?” “What can I do to be good enough to develop skills and get real good at something?” “I’m afraid to go into crowds among strangers, where I might say the wrong thing or do something dumb.” “How do you know when you’re in love?” “Why did it have to be me?”
When Norris reflects on her family—grandparents, parents, and siblings—she sees people whose lives “express God’s hidden power, described in Ephesians 3:20 as ‘the power at work within us’ that is ‘able to accomplish abundantly more than all we can ask or imagine.’ This feels especially true of my sister Rebecca, and I hope this book will reveal how God worked in her life, despite the daunting array of physical and mental obstacles she faced. Many people would have been driven to despair. But Becky held on; she had faith that God had something better in store for her.”
Heartbreaking and sorrowful, yet hopeful and grace-saturated, Norris’ tribute to her sister is vital reading for anyone who is facing what seem to be insurmountable obstacles in caring for a loved one with unique needs. In a note at the beginning of her book, Norris cautions readers that her narrative includes “mentions and descriptions of the effects of sexual assault and abuse, compulsive sexual behavior, disability, mental illness, medical issues, and death.” (IVP Formatio)
About the Author
Sonya VanderVeen Feddema is a freelance writer and a member of Covenant CRC in St. Catharines, Ontario.