The Missing Peace in Samuel G. Freedman’s Life
The first two pages of the book automatically raise a question in the reader’s mind: How can anyone, who had a mother present in his or her childhood, not even bother to visit her gravesite in twenty-six years since her death. Someone with a moral conscience might find it extremely difficult to answer this question. However, many children are detached from their parents, but unlike Samuel G. Freedman, some might never even bother to pick up the pieces.
Throughout the book, there was this great sense of remorse radiated from Samuel G. Freedman’s tone. Perhaps he was ashamed or felt guilty because he never knew who his mother really was. However to care so little about his mother’s life, made me as a reader wonder what aroused the epiphany in Samuel G. Freedman to write a book about who his mother was. What was even more surprising is how far he has gone to find out every possible detail about Eleanor Freedman. He was able to dig up everything, starting with her youth going as far back as when she was fourteen, her first years in high school to her very intimate moments with the many boyfriends she had in her life. Sometimes guilt can be such a powerful force, that it can compel one to go to the extremes if there is a chance to expiate it.
Asking someone for forgiveness while the person is alive can be difficult enough however when the person is long dead it is much more difficult to seek redemption. There are many ways to apologize. At times a simple sorry will do it. Sometimes, depending on the situation a dozen of red roses or a nice deed will be enough. However when the person is long gone these simple gestures are no longer an option. By writing this book, Samuel Freedman found his way of apologizing for not being the son he thought he should have been.
After finishing Who She Was, it was not clear to me what all of a sudden inspired his epiphany to go back in time to find out more about his mother. However meeting him in person made everything immediately clear. Having him speak before us made me realize how genuine his feelings of remorse are. There was a bit of sorrow and residual guilt in his voice when his mother was mentioned. Samuel G. Freedman, has a happy family of his own, is a brilliant and a very successful man. An award winning writer, a columnist and a professor at Columbia University of a class that every future writer is dying to get in. One can only envy his success and wish to achieve everything Samuel G. Freedman did. However what everyone does not know is that there was always something bothering, emptiness, a ghost that didn’t leave him at peace no matter how successful he was in everything else. He neither knew what the missing peace was nor where it was coming from. In 2000, in his mid forties by mere chance he finally realized what was bothering him all along, his distance from his mother.
Even though “Who She Was” is not the best selling book of the year, it might not even be the most successful book he wrote, but it certainly will be the most important one for the rest of his life. Completion of this book is the last missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle of his life.