Finding Love in Pain

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Linda Hogan’s memoir, The Woman Who Watches Over The World, is a beautiful narration of her life, filled with internal struggles and conflicting pasts. In attempts of surviving a difficult childhood, she found herself in a “broken” world, filled with illness and pain. The fight through pain, present not only in her body but also her spirit, helped her reunite with her native past. Her native past become her refuge, guiding her through life and its struggles. The book showcases how Hogan in her struggle through illness and healing finds love in pain and a spiritual refuge in her ancestral past. Hogan’s life from childhood appeared to be a battle for love. Her father, an army sergeant was always travelling and her mother, silent and dry had no intention of showering her daughter with the love and affection she needed. “I see that my life was shaped by a poverty of the heart, the lack of present love, which left me open to love from other places, because I was a child untouched by mother’s hands, a child so disturbed as to have had almost no language” (43). This resulted in her getting involved with an older man at the tender age of twelve. Dreaming to be a mother from that young age, she finally adopted two young girls, Marie and Jeanette, in the hope of becoming a loving and nurturing mother to them. However, wounds of their past conflicted with Hogan’s dreams of the present. She soon discovered the pain and trauma her daughters went through as abused children. “With our oldest daughter, all the pain fell outward, onto others, whom she would hit or abuse, but for Jeanette, pain came to an inward point” (84). The pain engulfed their entire family, leaving them hurt and shattered. However, Hogan with her strong belief in her Native American culture and its power of healing overcame this battle, emerging a victor. Hogan’s love and affection helped her younger

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