I received a copy of this book for this review. This post contains affiliate links.
Welcome to the blog tour for The Long Awakening by Lindsey O’Connor. This is a memoir that immediately piqued my interest when I was given the chance to review it. Before I tell you my thoughts, here’s what it’s about:
On a crisp October day in 2002, Lindsey O’Connor woke from a 47-day medically induced coma. She heard her ecstatic husband’s voice and saw his face as she emerged from the depths of unconsciousness. She was bewildered by the people around her who looked so overjoyed and were so thoroughly attentive and attuned to her every move. Then came the question: “Do you remember that you had a baby?”
Lindsey drifted in and out of consciousness again for weeks. When she finally and gradually surfaced permanently from her long submersion, she struggled to understand that the day her baby came into the world was the day she left it. Her awakening was the happy ending for her family and friends–the miracle they had been praying for–but it was just the beginning of Lindsey’s long and frightening journey toward a new reality.
With visceral images and richly layered storytelling, Lindsey O’Connor vividly tells the poignant true story of the struggle to reenter her world and rebuild her identity. Underlying this life and death battle is a story of lost and found love, the effort to make sense of life-altering events, and the continuing search for self. This moving memoir paints a powerful picture of pain, beauty, and the unsurpassable gift of finally knowing who you are.
This book was very hard for me to read. Not because it was poorly written but because I, or any woman, could very well be in Lindsey’s same spot at any time. Truthfully, while I’m sure Lindsey didn’t feel it at the time, and probably doesn’t feel that way even now, she probably would have died if this had happened 20 years ago. Maternal mortality still occurs and this book highlights that fact, though the majority of us that bear children try not to think about that. Through nobody’s fault, an entire family and community is grieving and worrying when they should be celebrating the birth of a new baby. I only shudder to think about this happening to somebody else with far fewer ties, help and prayers.
I was really moved by Lindsey’s oldest daughter, Jacquelyn, and her struggle with her faith. For a girl of barely 18 who was faced with caring for her baby sister, she wondered why this had happened to her mom and why God had allowed it to happen. She reconciled this in her head but I can imagine this happened to many of the friends and family members to the O’Connors.
O’Connor also touches on the idea of miracles, with both her being and representing one. It must be hard for somebody who eventually deals with post-traumatic stress disorder to think of herself as a miracle or being viewed as the fact that prayer works, especially as she struggles to heal and never will be quite the same as she was before Caroline’s birth.
I think this book serves as an important reminder that we should always have our affairs in order and our wishes expressed to our loved ones so that we may have medical choices made in the manner that we would wish if we are unable to do so. I know Lindsey’s husband Tim’s struggle with signing a DNR really shook me as I’ve instructed my husband to not allow me to hang on in the case of brain death. Lindsey was virtually on the brink of death and Tim was tortured with the fact that he may be imposing terrible pain on his wife even as he saved her life.
I did enjoy this book but I do have to warn you that you will cry. You will sob. In fact, I’m crying as I write this review. The saddest part is this is real, it’s not fiction, and these were real people impacted in this way. I thank Lindsey for sharing her story and laying out the not-so-pretty parts of her ordeal, even telling us the ugly facts about her bonding experience with Caroline.
You can find The Long Awakening by Lindsey O’Connor for sale in both hardcover and e-book format on various retail sites, like Amazon.com.
Available October 2013 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.
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