Memory Keepers Daughter Essay

Truth be told nobody is normal or perfect each and every one of us have our flaws, insecurities and concerns. In The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards argues that . In life, there are many things that we can neither cure nor accept nor overcome; sometimes all it takes is one choice to determine the rest of our lives. One winter night in 1964, a Dr. David Henry makes a decision that will haunt his life forever. On a winter night in 1964, an unusual Kentucky blizzard forces Dr. Henry and his nurse Caroline Gill to deliver his own twins for his wife, Norah. First born is the boy, Paul, who is a visibly perfect baby. Shortly after, the baby girl Phoebe is born and is noticed to have symptoms of Down Syndrome. David cannot accept his baby girl because he does not want his wife to go through the same trauma his mother went through with the death of his little sister due to a heart defect. In a split second, David decides that the girl should be placed in an institution to spare Norah the suffering, and he asks the Caroline, the nurse, to take Phoebe to the institution. After Caroline left the Henry’s house, and seeing the horrible conditions of the institution, Caroline decides to keep the baby and raise Phoebe herself. David then lies to his wife and says that their daughter died at birth. This quick lie David Henry tells his family changes their life forever. The â€Å"death† in the family immediately causes a distance between David and Norah; David becomes infatuated with a camera that Norah bought for him while Norah turns to drinking. The distance between the Henry’s continues to grow even further while David and Norah aspire to do totally different things with their lives. David wants to become a photographer and tries to immerse himself in his work, he tries to ignore the resulting toll it takes on his family by viewing everything through a camera lens, almost†¦ We as people are in general very bias even if you don’t mean to be, you can be bias to the types of foods that you prefer, or to people who may or may not have mental illnesses. Life is filled with things beyond our control, and we must rely on ourselves to discover the link between suffering, joy and acceptance. There will always be thing that we can neither cure nor accept nor overcome; sometimes all it is going to take is one choice to determine the rest of our lives and The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards proves this.