KAAN Books

Pushing Up The Sky
by Terra Trevor

$25.95
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Link to author's web site

“The title ‘Pushing up the Sky,’ comes from a Native American story about the power of people working together for a common good. This is the theme in Terra Trevor’s memoir about her remarkable family, and their efforts in dealing with a series of crisis. There are two stories in Trevor’s personal account. The first is how the Trevor household deals with being an international and multicultural family. The second is how this family or any family must endure crises and tragedy and still find a way to go on. The family must accommodate the diverse backgrounds and identities of each member. Terra, despite her fair features, is Native American. Gary, her husband, has strong Irish roots. Vanessa, their biological daughter is the all-American girl. Jay, their Korean son, is an assimilated American. Kyeong Sook, adopted from Korea at age ten, has the hardest adjustments integrating into the family. For Terra and Gary, any early perceptions of adoptees being immersed into the American melting pot weren’t going to work, certainly not for Kyeong Sook, and they realized it was important to honor the heritage of each family member. Life reaches a balance and then the second critical challenge for the family occurs when seven-year-old Jay is diagnosed with a brain tumor. This is a memoir about the loss of loved ones, and about pulling together. It’s about living and not waiting for the second shoe to drop, and finding comfort in the things that connect us to those who have gone before. Terra Trevor is a fine writer with clarity and purpose. She has a clean, unfettered style. ‘Pushing up the Sky’ is honest, unflinching, and moving.”
— Reviewed by Bill Drucker, Korean Quarterly

“If you have ever felt your journey through parenting has been complicated, reading Terra Trevor's memoir ‘Pushing up the Sky’ may leave you thinking your experience has been simplicity itself in comparison. A ‘mixed blood’ Native American, Trevor and her white husband had one biological child before choosing to complete their family through adoption. They adopted from Korea twice: one infant with medical needs, and one older child. The resulting memoir contains enough material for several books: on transracial, international, ‘special needs,’ and older-child adoption, as well as coping with the loss of a child to terminal illness.

As a Native American, Trevor brings a new voice to the topic of transracial adoption, which traditionally has been written about only by white adoptive parents of adopted children of color. She reveals this unique perspective when she writes: ‘Growing up in my family I observed a lot of denial of being Indian. At times I felt part of me was missing, and the part of my heritage denied became more important to me than the part of me that was clearly defined. This was the main reason I decided it was important for [my children] to grow up with the opportunity to be surrounded with Koreans and Korean Americans. They could reject an Asian identity if they wanted, but I wanted them to feel at home with what they were rejecting.’ (page 80)

In the first half of her book, Trevor recounts the warm friendships and expanded cultural awareness that grew out of her involvement in the local Korean church, travels to Korea, and hosting a Korean family. The account of Trevor's adoption of an older child is also unusual in adoption literature. Ten years old when she arrived in the United States, Kyeong Sook did not make an easy transition to life with her new family; in fact a year after she arrived, Trevor traveled with Kyeong Sook to Korea to help her decide whether she wanted to go back there permanently. Trevor writes of this rare move: ‘It was a risk, and I knew it, yet I also knew we had to deal head-on with her desire to return to Korea.’ (page 45)

Kyeong Sook chose to return to the United States, but her relations with her adoptive family remained troubled, and she left home shortly before turning eighteen. Trevor patiently shares wisdom gained from years of family therapy, insights into loss, grieving, abandonment and attachment, but this portion of her story resolutely resists a ‘happily ever after’ ending, and she is candid about the relief she felt, mixed with sadness and guilt, when her daughter left home.

The illness or loss of a child are more familiar literary topics, but in the second half of her book Trevor covers them from the perspective of her unique family situation: one child dies, two remain living, yet one is estranged. Trevor remains active in the Korean adoptive family community, even as her own status as an adoptive parent continues to shift and change. It might have taken a whole other book to do justice to this chapter in her life. Yet in the end, one can see why Trevor wished to weave all the aspects of her maternal experience into a single story, one that reflects the complexity of real, messy life.”
— Reviewed by Michele Rabkin, Pact

“As a 19-year-old unmarried college student Terra Trevor found herself pregnant. A social worker counseled her it would be easier to find adoptive parents for her baby were she not Native American. She miscarried before deciding whether or not to place her baby for adoption. Twelve year later and after giving birth to a daughter, Terra and her husband adopted a 1-year-old boy from Korea. When their son was 3 and their daughter 6, the family adopted a 7-year old girl from Korea. After she'd been with them a few hours their new daughter informed them she was actually 10. "Make sure she understands that we want her, and that her age doesn't matter," Terra told her new daughter through a friend who served as an interpreter. Written with abundant love, this book is an honest account of the challenges of integrating an older child into an established family. It is also about building community with Korean American culture and with other adoptive families. And finally, the book becomes a journey to save a son from cancer. The author's sensibilities toward the natural world and all that really matters in the lives of her children put her on the level of a great teacher of the capacities of the human heart. Sad but triumphant, ‘Pushing up the Sky’ deserves a wide readership for its great story-telling and lyrical use of language.”
— Reviewed by Alice Evans, Holt International

“Terra Trevor shares her family's story, as it unfolds from the birth and adoptions of her children, more than 20 years ago to the present day. Trevor's story is no fairy tale, she writes courageously and honestly about each difficult aspect. Written from the perspective of a woman who straddles a complex ethnic and racial heritage, the story is suffused with issues of race, culture, identity loss and gain. Trevor is Native American, and she writes about her own incorporation of that heritage into her sense of self, while simultaneously figuring out how to weave her adopted children's cultural heritage into their family. ‘Pushing up the Sky’ is about a real family facing real challenges, and is a remarkable tribute to the power of family.”
— Reviewed by Jane Brown, Adoptive Families magazine

“Author Terra Trevor wrote her memoir ‘Pushing up the Sky’ about the period following the adoption of their oldest daughter from Korea. Trevor waded into uncharted territory as not only was the adoption transracial (Trevor is American Indian and her husband is Caucasian), but they adopted an older child changing the birth order within their family (they had a birth daughter who now became the 'middle child' as well as a son, also adopted from Korea). As Trevor writes, "All at once, we discovered there would not be a honeymoon. Our amalgamated life together began immediately, and it hit us full force. Once again I had that same sense as when company or the cousins came for an overnight stay. When the children had overnight guests, the activity level peaked, and my emotions rode on air currents as I paced my way through the visit. Yet with company or cousins I knew it would eventually end, and once they left I could settle my children down and we'd go back to our regular lives. Only I couldn't because these were all my kids.”
— Reviewed Literary Mama

“I purchased ‘Pushing up the Sky’ at the 2007 KAAN Conference in Boston, and I could not put the book down. Terra Trevor's insights into her thoughts and feelings regarding her life experiences are special. She is a gifted author because she could bring those experiences to life in my mind and allow me to connect with my own experiences on multiple levels. My heart was breaking and the tears flowing as I read through those difficult circumstances of her son, but what strength she had, and I'm certain that gave him the courage to face what he needed to face. I have a son (14) and a daughter (13) who are adopted from Korea. Their adoption journey is fully engaged during their entry into adolescence, and the Mother and Daughter relationship especially is being challenged now on a daily basis. I greatly appreciated Terra's perspectives on her relationship with her oldest daughter. Thank you again for the gift of this book, and I'm glad Terra is still involved with KAAN, so others (like me) can learn from her.”
—  Cheryl Thomas

“Terra Trevor’s ‘Pushing up the Sky’ is a revelation of the struggles and triumphs packed into the hyphens between Korean and Native American and American. From her, we learn that adoption can best be mutual, that the adoptive parent needs acculturation in the child’s ways. With unflinching honesty and unfailing love, Trevor details the risks and heartaches of taking in, the bittersweetness of letting go, and the everlasting bonds that grow between them all. With ‘Pushing up the Sky’, the ‘literature of adoption’ comes of age as literature, worthy of an honored place in the human story.”
— Robert Bensen, editor of Children of the Dragonfly: Native American Voices on Child Custody and Education

“This powerful journey through life is elegantly unfolded by author Terra Trevor. Weaving her personal story through parenting, death, grief and living, she gives readers a glimpse into her soul. At moments, Trevor’s story brought to life by her exceptional writing brought tears to my eyes. I could share her heartache and felt the tendrils of joy spring to life as she began her healing journey.”
— Kim Phagan-Hansel, editor of Adoption Today magazine

“Terra has woven a moving story of love and heartache across time and culture. She has integrated her own American Indian culture into the dynamics of transracial adoption and described in detail life in a transracial family that has not been done before to this extent. Her courage to describe these events with great honesty bears witness to a family that provided warmth, encouragement and humor in the face of adversity.”
— Phillip Capper, Adoption Australia magazine

“In ‘Pushing up the Sky’ Terra Trevor weaves our interconnectedness with nature, her Native American culture and the culture of her Korean born children to create the sense of permanency, which is so necessary for every family. Trevor demonstrates how interdependencies in families take different forms over time.”
— Kathy Beck

“Accurate and compelling. Terra shares what few understand. I loved this book.”
— Gigi McMillan, Executive Director, We Can Pediatric Brain Tumor Network

“Brave, beautiful, deeply moving, and very necessary. This powerful account of the author’s confrontation with all life could challenge her with, gives us the inspiration to persevere with help from our friends as we let the love in our hearts keep us grounded, and smiling. I thought my twenty years as a neurologist had inured me from the pain of my patients. Trevor’s book reminded me that there are moments to embrace even through life’s most arduous travails.”
— Judy Willis, M.D. Author of Research-Based Strategies to Ignite Student Learning: Insights from a Neurologist and Classroom Teacher

“This is a book to cherish and pull out again and again. Hope is on every page.”
— Maggie Dunham

Many people believe a lot of things that aren’t true about those of us who choose transracial adoption and then adopt older kids. We don’t have the subtle art of parenting perfected; we’re ordinary parents, the ones who manage, with more or less grace, to learn the new parenthood lessons that must be learned. — from Pushing up the Sky

Terra Trevor is a contributing author of Children of The Dragonfly: Native American Voices on Child Custody and Education, The People Who Stayed Behind: Southeastern Indian Writings After The Removal, and Childhood Brain & Spinal Cord Tumors: A Guide for Families, Friends & Caregivers. Her articles and essays are published in Adoptive Families and Adoption Today magazine. She is a prolific writer of a diverse body of work and shares her knowledge and experiences by speaking in a variety of forums nationwide. Visit her website at www.terratrevor.com.