As a twelve-year-old girl, Maria Housden’s vision of a happy future included everything that society expects girls to yearn for: a home, a husband, and, of course, children. Life had other plans.Unraveled is Housden’s riveting and thoughtful story of how, after the death of her young daughter, she found the courage to break away from her role as a wife and stay-at-home mom and strike out on her own in search of a more fulfilling life. Leaving her three surviving children in the primary custody of her husband, Housden faced down the disbelief of friends and family and began a journey that would ultimately lead her not only to the truth about herself, but also to a deeper and more loving connection with her children.Housden writes about the emotional reckoning that led to her decision and the ways in which she has become the best mother she can be while no longer living with her children full-time. With fierce honesty and the same gift for poignantly beautiful writing that she demonstrated in the bestselling Hannah’s Gift, Housden makes a valuable contribution to our collective conversation about mothering, marriage, and the assumptions we make about the way life is supposed to be. Unraveled is the remarkable story of one woman’s choice not to live every girl’s dream . . . and instead to find her own.
The only light in the room came from a single kerosene lamp. I ran my hand along the wall beside the wide-plank door, found a switch, and flicked it on. A copper lamp with a fringed shade made a circle of light on the small wooden table next to the bed. I stood in the center of the room and felt a sense of excitement growing in me. Although I had dreamed of this moment for years, envisioned this place many times before, I hadn't ever truly believed it would happen. Looking around now, anything felt possible, as if something new was coming alive in me, a sense without form, poised to take shape.
The idea of a retreat had been planted in my heart in the first months after Hannah's death. Holding her lifeless body in my arms, part of me had released itself; something in me had irreparably changed. I had known then that I would have to get away, to immerse myself in a silence that was only mine, if I were to ever understand fully what had happened, if I were ever to know what I was supposed to do next.
The Hermitage, the center where I was now staying, had been established years ago by an elderly Mennonite couple who had converted a huge barn into several floors of small bedrooms, libraries, and a kitchen--dining room. For a modest fee, guests were given their own rooms and bath and encouraged to spend their days quietly on their own, reading, painting, writing, or walking in the fields and surrounding woods. All meals, except for breakfast, were prepared by Mary and served to guests around the farm table in silence. It seemed the perfect space for my retreat.
Now, gazing around the room, I felt as if I had been transported into another, timeless place, far from any life I had ever known. The walls were paneled with knotted pine boards that climbed horizontally to the beamed ceiling. Two screened windows on wide hinges were open to the warm summer evening, their white lace curtains catching the breeze. A well-worn plank floor was partially covered by a brown braid rug, and along one wall, facing the largest window, was a double bed with a carved, wooden headboard and muted patchwork quilt. A small teddy bear with button eyes and suede paws leaned against the pillow.
I laid my suitcase on the bed and began to unpack. I stacked my folded clothes in the drawers of the simple bureau, placed my new journal alongside a silver pen on the small desk that sat beneath the window across from the bed, and slid several photographs of my husband, Claude, and our four children, Will, ten; Hannah, who would have been seven; Margaret, three; and Madelaine, two, under the edges of the window frame above. In the drawers of the desk I put pages of drawing paper, a few pencils, and a deck of cards.
Beneath the second window, next to the dresser, was a small kneeling bench with a wooden shelf nailed to the wall above it. Here I placed a votive candle and the gold cross I wore around my neck during the last year of Hannah's life. When I had finished, I slid my suitcase under the bed and sat down in the large, upholstered reading chair in the corner. From my vantage point, I could see fireflies blinking in the dark outside the windows. I sat quietly, not moving, feeling myself breathe. Mary, the caretaker, had told me when I checked in that one other guest was scheduled to arrive in a day or two; other than that, I would be on my own. Having shared a room with two younger sisters until I was eighteen, and never having lived on my own, the idea of so much solitude and silence seemed too good to be true. And, as a wife and mother, I had become so acclimated to constant interruptions that I couldn't...
Reviews
Suzanne Finnamore, author of Otherwise Engaged and The Zygote Chronicles...
"Maria Housden gives the rest of us permission to live lives of truth. Unraveled once again proves that hers is a voice to be reckoned with. She brilliantly and with subtle lyricism negotiates the shoals of love and loss, but it's more than that. . . . Housden consistently leaves her readers wiser, less alone, and cradling a palpable sense of the very good possibility of triumph."
Suzy Farbman, author of Back from Betrayal...
"Maria Housden probes the rewarding/maddening underside of what it means to be a wife and mother. In her brave quest for self-fulfillment, she empowers others to challenge expectations. Her gentle wisdom is a gift to us all."
Arielle Ford, author of Hot Chocolate for the Mystical Lover...
"Learning to live without knowing, accepting uncertainty and yet following the heart's yearning and wisdom. These are the lessons Maria Housden so elegantly shares in this deeply personal recounting of her life. Her words have made me a better woman."
Mark Matousek, author of Sex Death Enlightenment and The Boy He Left Behind...
"Unraveled does for mothers everywhere what M. Scott Peck did for truth seekers in The Road Less Traveled. Absolutely brilliant."
Tara Paterson, founder of JustForMom.com...
"Housden has taken all of her pain and accepted its place and purpose in her life, and now shares her inspiration with the world. If you are a mother struggling to know who you are, this book will inspire you to your core."
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