My Life on the Slush Pile

Immediately after being born, baby Lindsay Wincherauk is ripped from his mother’s arms and put in a glass-walled container in an empty room peeking out into a darkened world. 

Little did baby Lindsay know, he’d be having a turbulent forty-three years, the kind of years where he became a chalkboard with kid-after-kid lining up to drag their fingernails across his fragile being. 

A story about finding yourself after accidentally discovering your life started with a lie. 

Not every day do you meet someone who watched both of his parents die from The Big C and laid them to rest, only to discover sixteen years later that they weren’t his parents after all. 

It’s like being reborn as a whole different person.

SYNOPSIS:

My Life on the Slush Pile → Synopsis

Immediately after being born, baby Lindsay Wincherauk is ripped from his mother’s arms and put in a glass-walled container in an empty room peeking out into a darkened world.

Little did baby Lindsay know, he’d be having a turbulent forty-three years, the kind of years where he became a chalkboard with kid-after-kid lining up to drag their fingernails across his fragile being.

After one of his most challenging months (March 2003): five deaths + the end of a relationship (first gay), sixteen years after laying his mother, Rebekah (his last parent), to rest. While requesting a new birth certificate, a civil servant drably asked him, “Could you phone your parents and ask them who your real parents are?” The news shattered Lindsay’s core as he immediately understood everything in his life had been a lie.

The revelation caused Lindsay to dive back into his life to cobble together the fractured pieces. Lindsay discovers he was born in a horrible place (Beulah House) where wayward women were sent to give birth to unwanted children—the shame of family, community, and religion. Many of the mothers and children died during childbirth.

In breathtaking honesty, Lindsay relives his life, describing what it was like being the demon seed in a family trapped inside the fear of shame. Lindsay excelled at sports, love, and scholastically, screaming out, LOOK AT ME. Nobody was looking.

Lindsay anxiously attempts to understand who he is, who he is meant to become, and why his life was layered in secrecy?

He becomes a hall-of-fame (one-eyed) quarterback on a championship team, longing for his father’s love. Lindsay crashes a motorcycle in Jamaica, has a run-in with Manuel Noriega, plays basketball with David Duchovny, eats breakfast with Michael Chiklis, and brushes past the Dalai Lama.

Ostracized from family after his mother’s death, Lindsay trips into substances and relies heavily on friends for salvation.

Eventually, while on a life-saving whirlwind journey through Europe with his friend David. Lindsay uncovers the names of his birth parents, building a two-year relationship with his father (Elmer)—and dealing with the crushing reality his mother, Bernice, constantly told him he’d be a failure. While she assumed the role of his oldest sister.

When Lindsay finally found the courage to tell his family he knew the truth (eight months later), Lindsay’s oldest brother (uncle) hung up the phone (2004)—and family hasn’t spoken to him since.

Despite his less than an auspicious ride through life, Lindsay is KIND. COMPASSIONATE. FUNNY AS HELL. And he shares powerful messages: NEVER QUIT TRYING and make kindness your default position because we can never be sure of the pain hiding behind someone’s eyes.