Customer Reviews

I Raise My Eyes to Say Yes

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
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I was fortunate enough to work with Ruth for about a year before she passed away. Anyone who has met Ruth knows that her spirit transcended her physical disability. This book is only one example of her courage and perserverence. Please, please read this book. It might change your outlook on people with disabilities.

Ruth Sienkiewicz-Mercer is, in my estimation, one of the most remarkable women about whom I have ever read. Not only did she survive separation from a loving but misinformed family and the horrors of Belchertown State School, Mrs. Sienkiewicz-Mercer accomplished something seldom achieved by the institutionalized disabled. She not only left the institution, she rose high above it. In this book she uses her eyes to tell her story.

I am saddened to report that Ruth Sienkiewicz-Mercer passed away in the summer of 1998. She never spoke her entire life but she will be sorely missed by those she reached with her words. Many thanks to Steven Kaplan for helping her tell her story.

I could not put this down. Moving account of a person's struggle to be seen and heard!! I am a Professor of Special Education at SUNY Plattsburgh and all my students are required to read this book.

Thank you all so much for your praise of my sister's book. She would have been thrilled to have read these.

For anyone who wonders why people who have disabilities fight so desperately against institutional care, this book will show you why! Dehumanization, being cut off from friends and family, rejected by society, this book shows it all. Thank God that this book also describes the way out. Like Joseph, thrown in the pit, sold into slavery, and thought dead for years by his father; we will be free!

I read this autobiography for an Occupational Therapy graduate school course. I was truly, truly inspired by Ruth's story. It opened my eyes to what the proper medical treatment of an individual SHOULD be. Mind, Body, and Spirit all need to be addressed. Ruth can be proud that her story will literally shape the way in which I will practice Occupational Therapy in the future. Her struggles will be my fuel toward change and healing. I thank her from the bottom of my heart for having the courage to put her story into writing.

This book was truly inspiring. The main character displayed courage and strength as she persevered through the challenges of living in an institution in the late 1960-70's. This book will give anybody with a little adversity in their life a new perspective of what it means to be faced with hardships.

This was an agonzing graphic depiction of what life is like to be severely disabled. With little family support Ruth is treated like an object subjected to inhuman living conditions and abused at a state institution. It is also a story of triumph as Ruth fights to reach goals and finally reaches some independence.

It was the most inspiring book that I have read. I hope everyone out there will get a chance to read this book.

I started reading this book on a Sunday morning and could not put it down until I finished it that same day. I can't even imagine how frustrating Ruth had to have felt all those years. How it shows that when you go to work every day, and do a good job, how that can totally impact another persons life without even realizing the extent of that kindness. When those 5 women entered that state school, little did they realize how they touched those kids lives. I am proud to say that one of those women was my mother, although she also is in heaven now, I am sure their eyes have met there somewhere.