Childhood Interrupted: A Story of Loss,Separation, and Reconciliation

This essay presents a story of personal loss and childhood trauma experienced by the author in 1968. Written in autoethnographic form, the author narrates a particular time in his life when he lost his hearing and subsequently experienced “disrupted attachment”(Becker, 1997 Becker, G. (1997). Disrupted lives: How people create meaning in a chaotic world. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Google Scholar]) caused by forced separation from family on the day he began life at a residential school for deaf children. Forty-six years later, the author weaves together a narrative of loss and trauma followed by his own reflections, showing how he used writing conversation as a source of healing that allowed him reconcile with his past.