Mending Hearts

An intrepid mother who raised three adopted children shares her challenges and rewards.

Broken Pieces: Mending the Fragments Through Adoption gave me chills and provoked tears of pain and joy, even as some aspects confused me.

Though I have firsthand knowledge of the author’s incredible story, I must admit that being Dr. Grace Allman Burke’s brother-in-law (her sister and I are married) didn’t stop me from scratching my head a few times as I tried to understand why she would write it using pseudonyms for the characters including herself. 

I kept asking myself, Why doesn’t she just tell readers that this is about her own family? What’s with the made-up names? 

But I learned that to protect her children from stigma, she believed this strategy was necessary at the time. “I got the children’s permission to write the book, but I did not use their names,” she said in an interview with SAconnects. 

Protecting the innocent

Burke wrote the book in the first person but chose to conceal the narrator’s identity under the name “Giselle Gillman Bishop.” She also didn’t call it a memoir. Still, the content came directly from her diary, where she faithfully kept copious notes through the years. 

“This is what happened,” she said. 

Today, this award-winning author makes her role in the story crystal clear. “I tell everybody who comes to the book table that this is my memoir,” Burke said. “I’ve opened that door now. It doesn’t matter. My children are grown and gone. So I’m open about it.”

Burke dedicated Broken Pieces to adoptive mothers. “I want to tell these women, ‘Thank you for taking on this responsibility. It’s not an easy job. It’s sometimes very thankless,’” she said.

In her message to adoptive mothers “who didn’t carry their babies under their hearts, but rather, within their hearts,” she concludes, “You deserve more praise than words can express. Your work hasn’t been in vain, and this book is written in honor of you.”

Serving God, saving lives

In 2023, Burke was honored by the Alumni Association of Cornell University–New York Hospital School of Nursing, her alma mater. She was recognized for writing six books and for her outstanding achievements in nursing and midwifery. Burke is also an ordained minister.

Alumni Association President Linda V. Saal said, “Despite racial discrimination and other unpleasant adversity, she not only delivered over 4,000 babies, which is just mind-boggling, but also her most excellent skills saved the lives of babies who otherwise could have died. 

“Most of all … I see Grace as someone who inspires others to never give up, to speak the truth, and to help others. Her deep devotion and belief in God have supported her through the many challenges in her life.” 

Beyond broken dreams

Those challenges are hinted at on the book’s cover, which pictures a red heart, fragmented into five pieces. Each jagged-edged shard represents a member of her immediate family—two high-spirited daughters, one quiet but persistent son, a remarkably enduring husband, and Grace. 

“This union of such diverse individuals was ordained according to God’s divine plan,” Burke writes. In a chapter titled “Broken Dream,” she describes how her heart was broken when an unplanned hysterectomy abruptly ended her dream of bearing children of her own. 

As the arc of each person’s life unfolds in this page-turner, Burke reveals more of their unique and sometimes disquieting personalities. The settings are vivid, ranging from New York City to Dallas, Texas, to Barbados in the West Indies, and along the way she addresses many questions about the challenges and rewards of adoption. 

The contents are divided into four parts titled Breaking, Blending, Gathering, and Mending. Each takes the reader deeper into the metaphor of brokenness with evocative chapter headings—“Splinters,” “Slivers,” “Fragments,” “Patches,” “Chips”—that describe real-life trauma as the children struggle to mature.

Family legacy

The greatest reward Burke enjoys today is seeing her family grow to include grand- and even great-grandchildren. “You know, at the end of the day, there are 13 of us now. We’re very close knit and we spend holidays together. They say they’re not leaving Texas while my husband and I are alive,” she said.

“It wasn’t always that way, but now they’re adults in their 40s and experiencing their own situations. I’m trying to see what I can do to make sure the next generation may not experience some of the things that we did.”

Broken Pieces: Mending the Fragments Through Adoption shows how a God-inspired mix of love, fortitude, hard work, and faith can help strengthen life’s most fragile relationships and give new meaning to the definition of family. Broken Pieces: Mending the Fragments Through Adoption, in Kindle and paperback editions, 258 pages, is published by GAB Enterprises, Prosper, Texas, in partnership with CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. It is available on Amazon.com.