Did

Theodocia McLean was born on Beals Island, in Downeast Maine, in 1954. Sold to the mailman, adopted twice, she wasn't told her beautiful name until her sixteenth birthday. Her love for writing began when her fifth-grade teacher captured her imagination with creative writing assignments while she was living away from home in a harsh, punitive private school environment. A song that she sings every day is the only link that she has to Clara, her one special friend, who made daily life bearable for a short time in that dreadful place. She longs for the day when someone, even a stranger, will show her the proof that she desperately needs on whether her friend really died that terrible day. This book describes the first twenty-three years of her life with vivid detail and uncompromising honesty. Writing is therapy and telling her story takes her experience out of the shadows into the light. She hopes that her readers will muster up the courage to tell their story and thus begin their own healing journey.