I am 73 pages {also my age!) from finishing your book – “Brothers, Sisters: Strangers” and had to stop and say “thank you”…. I’m spending a month in Maine, my home state, in the fall and am planning on reaching out to my oldest niece. She left me a message last spring and I just wasn’t ready to respond. Your book is giving me the insight I need to be courageous. At my mother’s deathbed, my brother told me in no uncertain terms to not have any contact with him, his wife, or their five children. Despite the pain of losing Mom and Craig and his family all at the same time, there was a measure of relief – i knew I could not take any more of the abuse I had been subjected to on and off over the years. I had to take care of myself. And I have…. Now, more than a decade later, I’m hopeful that I’ve grown enough, that I’m strong enough, to reach out with an open mind and a loving heart and see if “reconnection” and “reconciliation” are possible. Your book has put in print before my eyes so many of the things I have learned about myself and my family of origin – and has added so many more clear, concise points of reference – and has actually given me lists of advice for taking action, for being aware of minefields along the way. I have discovered hope reading your words – at the same time gaining a grounded realization of what is possible and what may never be. So, please add my name and thoughts to the many you most surely have who are indebted to your story telling and your research and your shared compilation of both. Maureen Lee