The past belongs to everyone who was there. What do you remember? ADD YOUR STORY
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Kira Kowalski-Kline sent us this note — just another person who has come through childhood and landed on her feet! We are so touched that folks out there are relating to this book. Kira mentions that she’d like to write her story — which is exactly what Liz and Diana were hoping would happen! We are thinking of holding workshops in the new year to help people do just that; so, if you would be interested in attending, please email us!
Hi “Kids”,
I am writing to thank you for putting your stories out there for me to find. I, too, lost both of my parents. It was 1976, and I was sixteen. My Mom had cancer since I was ten, and my Dad died of a heart attack 6 months before she eventually died, on Christmas Day.
I took a couple of bounces to other homes, where I eventually landed with the family I babysat for. So hard, as Diana in particular knows, to adjust to a new family, being the odd one out. With a structured and anal mother who said she loved me, but showed me otherwise, and three children whom I knew they loved more than me. They never talked about my parents, and I felt they wanted me to forget about that life, and be in only theirs. I missed my parents.
I have an older sister, Lisa. I sent her the book for her birthday, October 19th…this Monday. I know she’ll read it, love it, and try to find Diana, because she lives in Austin, too. She is 53 and I am 49. A lot of what Amanda felt, I know she felt too. She always tried to be with me and protect me, but we were made to feel like it was somehow wrong for her to be in that world. She wasn’t even allowed to spend the night with me when she came home from college.
We, too, are all right now.
Please feel free to respond to this correspondence, as I already feel I know you.
Again, thanks. And congratulations on your success. For myself, I never would have thought telling my story of losing parents would be interesting to anyone but me. Glad to see there is compassion out there. You have encouraged me to write my own story, if for no one else but me.
Hi, “Kids”:
What a book. Just finished it last night and it moved me tremendously. I had to run upstairs and ask my 3 kids where they would want to live if something happened to me and my husband. Based on their answers, I am going to make some calls and finally get our will together, an onerous but necessary task (as your book brought home to me).
Individually, you are all incredibly strong. Together, a force of nature! I hope you get all the love you deserve.
Jill Rose
Baltimore, MD