Wrong thing done for right reasons in ‘My Abandonment’

While waiting for a flight, I was trolling the airport bookstore and spotted "My Abandonment," a book on my long list of must-reads. And though I can’t recall why I’d put it on my list or how I’d even heard about it, it doesn’t matter. I’m just glad it was.

Through the eyes, ears, and heart of 13-year-old Caroline, author Peter Rock tells a tale — inspired by a true story — of a young girl and her father who lived in a nature preserve in Portland, Ore., for several years before being discovered. Rather than rely on homeless shelters and public assistance, Caroline and her father chose to fend for themselves, creating a modern-day Swiss Family Robinson in the middle of a metropolitan city.

Weaving in details from newspaper accounts of actual events, Rock brings to life a world so far removed from my own that I was appalled and awestruck at the same time, like watching a car wreck. Caroline talked about bathing with buckets of water from the stream, sleeping on a mattress in a cave made of branches, taking trips to the city in her “city clothes” to visit the library and buy a few groceries.

In bits and pieces, I learned of her mother’s death and her father’s government pension as a war veteran, but even as she told her story, there was no sadness or anger or envy in her voice. Rock’s heroine may have known what she was missing, but she appreciated all that she had.

As the story progressed, and authorities intervened, I found myself disappointed, almost angry, that their unconventional lifestyle was altered forever. They were given traditional housing, clothing, schooling for Caroline, a job for her father. But they were miserable and soon disappeared off the radar again. I realized then that sometimes the wrong thing can be done for the right reason. And before the plane landed, I had finished this tale, written with such haunting simplicity, and realized, too, that we take so much for granted, and we really need so little.