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"LISTEN TO THE SILENCE": CUTTING DOWN A FAMILY TREE to ensure new growth. An Oregon woman's heartbreaking experience of living with a secret that tore her family apart
LISTEN TO THE SILENCE is the first published work of a mother who dared break her dysfunctional family's generations-old rule, Don't feel; Don't talk. Don't tell. Told in a poignent fashion with no holds barred, the story is designed to help other families suffering the soul-stifling effects of keeping family secrets.
LISTEN TO THE SILENCE is the self-published work of a mother of five who dared break her dysfunctional family's generations-old rule, Don't feel; Don't talk. Don't tell. By disclosing a heart-breaking family secret, Sher Bauman broke that rule. Alienation by her immediate family was the price she paid. "Having one's entire family turn their backs on you is probably the greatest hurt one can experience," Bauman says in reflection on the years following her disclosure of the forbidden truth. "But two of my children eventually saw the importance of our "secret" being revealed and today they are thanking me for having done it."
This keeping of family secrets, Sher Bauman asserts, "creates roots of guilt and shame that can last a lifetime. Telling the secrets can restore value, worth and dignity." Bauman's personal experience bears this out and she fills the pages of her book with a candor that leaves the reader with a burning sensation behind the eyes and a resolve to save their own family if they have made the same mistake. Written with a directness often softened by humor, this is a book hard to put down. It is also one of those books that remains in the memory for a long time once the last word has been read.
Kricket Nicholson, Executive Director for Domestic Violence Services In Pendleton, Oregon, had this to say about Sher Bauman's book:
| | - "Listen to the Silence is more than one woman's journey through life and her refusal to keep family secrets any longer. It's about the cycle of abuse and dysfunction that threads its way through one generation after another, until someone has the courage to break the cycle.
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As we travel through life, the beliefs we hold and the choices we make based on those beliefs affect not only our own happiness and well being, but also the happiness and well being of those around us. It is like a stone tossed into water -- the ripples disturb more than just where the stone entered the water long after the stone is out of sight.
It is also a story of moving forward in life. I once heard a saying, "It's good to look back at your life, not to stare, but just to learn."
This book can be helpful to those who no longer wish to keep the silence and to those who are gathering courage to break the dysfunctional family code: Don't feel; Don't talk; Don't tell.
Perhaps this book will encourage them in their own journeys."
A freelance writer and Guidance Counsellor living with her husband in Canby, Oregon, Bauman contributes feature articles to her local newspaper as well as monthly profiles for the area's Senior Center. She also sits on an Oregon Judicial Board as an advocate for abused and neglected children. Of her work there, Bauman says "My guiding passion in working with families is to save one child or stabilize one family."
Those wishing to purchase a copy of Bauman's book can email bofus@canby.com or contact the publisher, A New Tree Press, at (503)651-3824. The purchase price for the 187 page softcover book is $12.95. Mailing charge is an additional $3.00.
www.portfolios.com/SherBauman.
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