With President Obama on Memorial Day, 2014

I am grateful for a year of blessings. My book launch on May 17, 2014 was beyond my wildest dreams. More than 100 people came and crammed into Bank Square Books in Mystic, CT. Since then, the bookstore has sold more than 120 copies (not bad for a small town!) and I was honored to present my book to President Obama at the White House on Memorial Day. The book continues to be one of the top sellers on Amazon. I believe that the success of my book is related to the fact that many people need to hear and speak about those years during which the Vietnam War ravaged our spirits in this country. Because I am telling my story of how I became a widow at age 23 in 1969, and how I survived and eventually met, in 2006, the men who served with my husband, people are responding to me with their stories. I am honored to hear them. The power of stories and storytelling for healing is amazing. Bless this year, and all of you.

An excerpt from Those Who Remain: Remembrance and Reunion After War:

“I like to think that a rough-cut wisdom sustained me through my earlier life when I arrived at the beginning of adulthood, met incomprehensible tragedy and thought I had nothing left to live for. Sorrow does leave footprints, but healing is the courage just to continue, to begin again and again – many times over. I’m still standing, still believing. Hope works from within, rebuilding, even when we feel hopeless. It brings its own tools and works for free. Like a magic tailor who knows your size and shape, it repairs from the inside out.”