Wish You Happy Forever: What China's Orphans Taught Me About Moving Mountains
Written and Narrated By: Jenny Bowen
Length 8 hrs and 24 mins
Jenny is the mother of all Hope!
It is not unusual for a writer to create a tremendous work but then falter like CRAZY on the narration, but with Wish You Happy Forever, Jenny Bowen is the perfect voice for her personal memoir. There is honest and true emotion as she recounts frustration, anger, incredible grief and sorrow, and a truly wonderful joy at the end--even if it is tinged with sadness and some regret.
That she and her husband, getting on in years, read an article about baby girls in Chinese orphanages and decided to take direct action by adopting one, is pretty breathtaking. Most of us would read the article aloud to someone else, sigh and shake our heads, and then we'd forget about it. Some of us might throw a bit of money at the problem, but how many would go through the process and uncertainty of taking responsibility for a child?
And that child is terrified, is riddled with sores, has parasites galore in her system; she's quite frankly, a mess, near death's very door.
Ahhhh, but see? That's just where Wish You Happy Forever staaaaarts! Jenny Bowen looks at their daughter a year on in their lives together, and the girl is laughing and playing; she's healthy and is very much loved. So Jenny, after much thought and brainstorming, takes on China to implement programs in certain orphanages; it's an organization that she's called Half the Sky (Women raise half the sky) since it's mostly girls who are left in orphanages. She knows that the little/baby girls need attention, stimulation, people who actually care.
The book is about Jenny taking on the Chinese way, on taking on the government, on taking on dirty politicians, on bringing love and light to tragic little lives. And indeed, it is tragic. This audiobook is FILLED with graphic imagery of what these children have suffered and continue to suffer. Jenny finds many successes.... and...
That just leads her to take on ever greater challenges, all to help children, be they orphans of the AIDS epidemic in the more rural areas, or be they orphans of the Great Earthquake and other disasters.
Wish You Happy Forever makes for some pretty grim and heartbreaking listening to be sure, but it's oh so well worth it. Because Jenny is a fighter, whether she's battling the Board of Directors (who, admittedly, have real issues with the way she conducts herself during fraught health scares and political strife in China), or whether she's promised a profoundly disabled little girl that she’ll never be abused again, that she'll never be tied to a chair again, that she, Jenny, will find the perfect family for that little girl, no matter how long it takes. And Jenny has the Magic Touch--I was truly surprised at how very much she was able to keep some HUUUUUUGE promises!
The book ends on a happy-ish note, but it's hopeful for ever more, naturally. That's just the way Jenny is: There are so MANY mountains to move, wherever she goes in China, but danged if the woman doesn't have the strength, the heart, to move 'em all!
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