—Robert Bensen, editor of Children of the Dragonfly: Native American Voices on Child Custody and Education, The University of Arizona Press
"Terra Trevor, and her white husband, had one child before choosing to add more children to their family through foster care and adoption. They adopted twice: an infant with special medical needs from South Korea, and an older child. There are two stories in Trevor’s personal account. The first is about her oldest child experiencing difficulty adjusting from foster care to adoption. The second story is about her son, also adopted from Korea, diagnosed with a brain tumor, and how this family, or any family, must endure crises and tragedy and still find a way to go on. This is a story of compromises and insights, profound joy, deep suffering, and terrific rewards. Most of all, it is a story on the meaning of family, and learning to let go of expectations and to forge a new identity. The title ‘Pushing up the Sky,’ is from a traditional story from the Snohomish tribe, about the power of communities and people working together for a common good, this is the theme in Trevor's memoir."
—Bill Drucker, Korean Quarterly
Pushing up the Sky: A Mother's Story
First Edition; Hardcover 2006 Out of print
Cover Art by Marcia Adams Ho
Pushing up the Sky: A Mother’s Story
Complements of Terra Trevor
We Who Walk the Seven Ways (University of Nebraska Press) is Terra Trevor’s new memoir about seeking healing and finding belonging. After enduring the difficult loss she wrote about in her memoir Pushing up the Sky, a circle of Native women elders embraced and guided her through the seven cycles of life in Indigenous ways. Over three decades, these women lifted her from grief, instructed her in living, and showed her how to age from youth into beauty.
“Raised to conceal her Native ancestry, Terra Trevor learns from elders to nurture her mixed blood identity and shape her activism in transracial adoption, Indian health and education, and community building. This is an inspiring, heartfelt memoir of one Native woman’s spirit journey from childhood to her own elderhood.”
—Robert Bensen, editor of Children of the Dragonfly: Native American Voices on Child Custody and Education, The University of Arizona Press