The first time I read Emma Verhelst’s book “My Profession, My Path” I felt like she was talking directly to my own adolescence, or even my own mother. For me Verhelst is like a modern day Mother. And like my mother, she wants everything to be just right; she knows that being happy is part of being responsible. So in the book Verhelst describes her path as being through four different stages in her life, childhood, adulthood, and grandparenthood.
As an adult reading this book I found myself thinking about how much I relate to my own mother. After all Verhelst was brought up in a farming family in a small town in Holland, very German and rural. Her father worked long hours and the family was poor. Her mother was a talented writer but for most of her life she hid her talent out of fear of not getting the job she wanted. Emma spent her younger years in foster homes and various schools. All these experiences might have influenced her to express so much of herself through her writing.
In many ways Verhelst is like my mother, she was brought up in a rural area with hard work and determination. Although my mother was more successful financially and might have had a more international perspective on life, I am thinking that her success might have been because of her nationality rather than her nationality. Emma might not have known her own nationalities when she was a kid, but now as an adult she knows all the nationalities that define careers, love, marriages, parenting, and being successful. I think this is a great way to express yourself, and it’s nice that Verhelst puts all her achievements into one framework where everyone can view them and appreciate their greatness. It might also be a useful bit of marketing for her upcoming memoir.