Lone Star Book Blog Tour: Landing in My Present by Mary Walker Clark (Review)

“This journey has been filled with such recoveries, jarred by a photo, a friend’s story, a quiet moment of reflection…”

Landing in My Present: A Father, a Daughter, and the Singular Himalayan Journey that Reunited Them by Mary Walker Clark is a most unusual biography of a WWII pilot and father who died long after the end of the war but who was still in the prime of his life, leaving his wife to finish raising their children alone. Fifty years after Charles Walker’s untimely death, his daughter, Mary, embarked on an emotional and physical journey to discover just who her father was. Finding out how little you know about a parent can be both disconcerting and daunting, especially when that parent is no longer around for you to ask questions and to hear stories of his days flying cargo over the Himalayas during WWII. With only letters, photos, and other clues cobbled together, Mary painstakingly peeled back the layers to reveal a father who was not only a war hero but a man with unfailing integrity and a fun side that his children rarely saw, if ever.

Mary Walker Clark’s quest to know her father reminds us to take the time to get to know our own parents when they are still around. Before we know it, that chance is lost. But Mary’s story also shows us that even if that parent is gone,  it is not too late to at least catch a rare glimpse into his/her life. Mary embraced this wonderful, emotional, and enlightening opportunity to get to know her dad through photos and memories, both hers and her brothers’, revealing a man who had many layers but often kept them hidden, especially from his children. Mary’s actual physical journey to India and China to experience where her father spent his time during the war as a pilot is not recounted until the latter half of the book, but the preceding chapters highlight how Mary meticulously gathered information and revealed a thoroughly fascinating man whom she wished she had known better. What she gained was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to know him on a more spiritual level as the past is unveiled, and as her father lands smack dab into her present.

Mary’s writing is engaging as she dives into her father’s life and as she honestly tells the reader about her and her brothers’ stilted and scattered memories of a man who quietly shaped them during his lifetime and through simple characteristics and traits they recognized in themselves only after his death. Decades after her father’s accident and eventual death, Mary decided to finally get to know him, encouraging us to take the time to really know and understand the people in our lives whom we treasure and love, even if that discovery comes long after out loved ones have passed. Their lives will always matter to those who love them and to subsequent generations who will only know them through memories told around the dinner table and in biographies such as Landing in My Present.

Enter the giveaway below on or before July 31, 2020, for a chance to win an Amazon gift card or a signed copy of Landing in My Present by Mary Walker Clark.

I received a free copy of this book from Lone Star Book Blog Tours in exchange for my honest review.