A Stolen Life
Jaycee Dugard, who was kidnapped by a pair of sick people at the age of 11 and spent more than 18 years away from her family, could have chosen to write her memoir differently. She might have chosen to depict herself as a forever-a-victim type of person and this would have not been a surprise to anyone: a person who had been failed by the government, by more than one men she met in her life, by the society itself, needs not a permission to feel like a victim. Yet I felt very little, if any, of this when reading Dugard’s memoir: A Stolen Life. Instead, her memoir painted:
A victim, who managed to stay sane and keep the strength in the darkest moments of her hopeless captivity:
I have feelings of hopelessness. I feel like nobody cares. This year has been extremely hard. [...] I’ve had a few bad dreams lately, too… nothing like before, though. One was about a serial killer coming and killing us all and nobody would ever know. Phillip says the angels give him terrible dreams, too, he says they make him feel dirty. Nancy has been having a terrible time, too. Lots of bad dreams that Phillip says the angels torture her with. Sometimes I don’t want to live on a planet that lets such horrible things happen. I will not give up, though.
A person, who knows how to avoid letting hate poisoning her soul:
[She says the following about her meeting with Nancy, one of the kidnappers, after Nancy was imprisoned - NP] She [Nancy - NP] said that she was scared when I walked in because she thought that I would hate her. I told her although I do not hate her because I do not want to pollute my body with hate, what she and Phillip did to me and my family was unforgivable.
A woman, who possesses an endless will to live and to rebuild the life forcefully taken away from her and also a woman who endured countless abuse but who is also able to go beyond her own healing and focus on spreading her love to others who have suffered abuse:
The JAYC Foundation evolved from a deep need to give back all that I was given. A pinecone was my last grip on freedom, so to me they represent what was stolen away from me. Now that I am free, they symbolize life and freedom. They are the seeds of new life and that is exactly what I have: “new life.” The pinecone is my reminder that life can always be restarted. But I know I can’t heal the world. To me the best place to at least start the healing process is within our own families. Given the right tools, even a family that has been torn apart by unimaginable circumstances can learn to build a new path together. The JAYC Foundation will be set up to support families willing to come together in a variety of situations and diverse circumstances. My hope is to provide counseling and housing for families and victims of abductions and exploitations during the crucial early days of reconnection. I will work to provide the same type of safe environment my family and I experienced during the early days.
To me, this is a truly sad yet beautiful book that teaches one to appreciate things s/he has, to be more aware of one’s environment, to hope that some of the greatest wounds endured may start healing one day.
