My Father's Eyes

When Sheila Allee was a teenager, she accidentally discovered she had an uncle who had long before been placed in an institution for people with intellectual disabilities. Horrified that her Uncle Melrose had been “put away” and that no one ever talked about him, she couldn’t get him out of her mind. Several decades later, she tracked him down and even though he could not walk or talk or do much besides sit in a chair or eat hamburgers at McDonald's, the two became great friends. Eventually, she was able to help him move to a group home, a welcome respite for a man who had lived in a dreary state institution for more than 50 years. Through it all, Sheila thought all she was doing was helping her uncle find a better life and righting a wrong that had been done to him when he was ostracized from his family. But what really happened was that her Uncle Melrose helped her heal from her own emotional wounds.