I was adopted through the closed system in South Africa in April 1966. Though Laura Engel’s story unfolds in another country, her words felt like a mirror reflecting my own origins. A different continent, the same era—where secrecy reigned, young mothers were hidden away, and babies were signed away as if love and loss could be erased with ink. My birth mother, like Laura, was placed in a home for unwed mothers. The parallels between us are haunting. The weight of what was stolen from her—what was stolen from so many—is something I have carried my whole life.
You’ll Forget This Ever Happened is not just a memoir. It is a shattered silence, a truth that refuses to stay buried. Laura’s unflinching honesty exposes a system built on shame, where girls were punished for carrying life and forced to surrender their children as if they never existed. My heart broke as I read about the cruelty she endured, the guilt and grief she bore in isolation. I felt her sorrow, her rage, her longing—because I, too, have lived in the shadows of adoption’s unspoken truths.
And yet, this book is not only about sorrow. It is about the unbreakable bond between mother and child, the resilience of the human spirit, and the possibility of finding light after decades of darkness. Laura does not just survive—she rises. And in her rising, she gives others the courage to reclaim their own stories.
This book is a gift—to adoptees, to mothers who never forgot, and to anyone who believes that truth, no matter how painful, must always come to light.
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