STONE WALLS

Sandra Patricia grew up unwanted and unloved, only to become pregnant and give a daughter up for adoption. A few months later, Sandra is horrified to discover that she was adopted specifically to keep her adoptive parents from divorcing. Their unhappy and stressful marriage and family life fed years of depression, stress in Sandra’s own marriage, and alcoholism. When Sandra flees her husband and children and subsequently crashes her car, she is forced to face her addiction. As her life and marriage turn around through sobriety, she rebuilds her life, pursuing a university education and searching both for her own birth family and the daughter she gave up. Sandra’s thirty-five-year search reveals power struggles with social service agencies, an outdated and barbaric social service system-both within Manitoba and throughout Canada-and a web of secrets, lies, and deception. Stone Walls relates to all adoptees and birth families who search for connection and are denied relationships due to the outdated and cruel laws and practices of social service agencies and their personnel.