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My Name Is Why

My Name Is Why

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I do... to this day, think that success is being able to look in the mirror and know that I'm alright on that day. I don't believe I've made it–I believe that I'm making it. I believe that I've found my past so that I can live in the present, it's the most important thing to me. The books and the plays and the touring and the gigs and the speeches and the cash...it all pales into insignificance when compared with knowing that I didn't do anything wrong, and I'm going to be okay now." Amidst all the pain Lemn's writing stands out beautifully. The simplicity in the way he tells his story makes it utterly compelling. The story is told for exactly what it was and depicts a man who managed to survive and flourish against all odds. There is no sense of defeatism and as heartbreaking as it is, it's also a tale of resilience and courage. It is because of this that Lemn is before us today as a remarkable and accomplished man. The Greenwoods welcomed Sissay into their strict Christian household, with its love of C.S. Lewis, hymns, and prayer. Outside the family home stood a laburnum tree, “with its beauteous blooms and poisonous seeds”– a motif that comes to represent Sissay’s experience at Osborne Road. The Greenwood family swells in the years following Sissay’s arrival, with a brother and two sisters born to his foster parents. Despite what must have been a disorienting state of affairs, Sissay appears to be a happy boy and he reflects that he enjoyed Ashton, “the Market, the Flower Park, the Big Park. The church. My friends” and that he had developed a sweet tooth, which was put to good use on “Curly Wurlys, R Whites Lemonade, a quarter of Bon Bons”, and more. There was sibling rivalry with his brother who is close in age to him, and although he experienced casual racism in school and among his peers, his teacher reported that he was “[v]ery popular and extremely sociable … a ray of sunshine”. The Authority did not agree. a b c d Sissay, Lemn (2008). Something Dark. Oberon Books. ISBN 978-1-84002-843-0. Archived from the original on 15 April 2015.

Let’s dive into this, starting with why you would hear your name. Your Name Is A Big Part of Your Identity I'm pretty sure that in the past, I'd read, or heard on the radio, a fairly detailed piece about how Lemn Sissay himself ended up in the care system as a baby and young child, and the communication failures and inflexibility that meant late 1960s-early 1970s Wigan Social Services did not know or care that his Ethiopian mother would willingly have looked after him and taken him to her home country. This is a searing indictment of the care system and the way children are treated. Of all the professionals in the book, there was only one who really tried to help Sissay and he was usually over-ruled by his superiors. There is a history of neglect and racism. The foster family were very religious and initially things went ok until they had children of their own and things went gradually downhill. Sissay also records how the care homes he lived in affected his mental health and identity:

The most amazing thing about this book is that it’s not made up. This actually happened. It is an incredible story” I'm not going to suggest that the journey is to find yourself is easy—in many ways to go on that journey is the gift of life. So while it may be frustrating, it's actually a gift. That you, at quite an early age, can start to realize what the real priorities in life are: family, friendship, who you are, kindness to others, kindness to yourself. But I'll say this and it's really important, Harry Potter was a foster child. Superman was adopted. Moses—if you're religious—was adopted. You could say that Jesus had two fathers. The idea of the nuclear perfect family is a fallacy.

Wigan poet receives apology over his childhood abuse in the care system". Wigan Today. 30 April 2018. In 2015, Sissay brought a legal case against the UK government for critical mistakes in the social care he received as a child. The government settled the case out of court in 2018.a b "The Power to Inspire". University of Huddersfield. Archived from the original on 31 July 2013 . Retrieved 3 April 2013. So first and foremost, your name is a symbol of your identity. It's a symbol of who you are within this physical realm. Searing . . . Unputdownable . . . My Name Is Why is authentic and beautiful, a potential game-changer in public attitudes to children raised in care. It's about bureaucratic cruelty and what happens when love is absent. Don't miss it" ( The Times) How Lemn Sissay survived and turned out to be the man he is today is due only to the human spirit refusing to give in to the horrors heaped upon him as a youth. You can't help feeling anger and despair when reading this — I recommend the audiobook. So much of this story is heartbreaking but the damning documents by social services which serve as proof that he was not only denied his real family, his heritage, and his name but also the permission to dream, propels that feeling into something much deeper.



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