Sharon's discovery
Sharon discovers her Dad's wish to become an outlaw... and that not all heroes look like John Wayne.
"I saw these photos of me for the first time six years ago. I noticed that I wasn't smiling. Not on that day, in my new dress, when Mammy and Dad first took me home.
Three months later, my parents had to go to court to hear whether the adoption order had been granted. But my dad was deaf, so he told Mammy to sit at the front of the court, and give him a signal if the decision went against us.
His plan... was to go on the run... except, it was 1966, and we'd have had to go by bus. But he did promise my mother that he'd send postcards to let her know we were fine. Luckily the decision went with us.
I think Dad must have taken that plot straight out of a western with John Wayne, his favourite actor and life-long hero. Mammy only confessed Dad's secret scheme to become an outlaw after he died. So I never got to tease him about what our life on the run might have been like. I never got to tell him how much I valued the gifts they'd given me: a life to smile about, a world to laugh in, and love that lasts. I just wish I'd had more time to share this with my father. Not all heroes look like John Wayne."
Sharon Ellis
