Introduction

Things are never what they seem. That’s the story of my life. My life was never as it appeared. Not to outside people looking in, and as it turned out, not to me either. But that’s for later.

Since I was little, I remember my uncle Jim (who never wanted me to call him uncle, so it was just Jim) always said to me “You and I need to write a book. Nobody would believe this!”

When you are ten years old, writing a book seems like a VERY cool idea, like becoming an astronaut or a scientist or climbing Mount Everest; and something you should do when you are twenty five. For some reason, as a child, the age of twenty five was always a red letter year for me. It seemed to me that by the time you become twenty five, you are “all grown up”. Until, of course, I reached the age of twenty five and felt like I had lived a lifetime, and yet still felt like a child. By the age of twenty five, I was still in school (graduate school by then), and very busy with being twenty five. No time for a book…I had a dissertation to write. There was plenty of time to write later.

But Jim persisted. ”We have got to write a book” I would hear him say every time we talked on the phone, or spent time together laughing at our families, and the situations in which we found ourselves. By the time I was thirty five, I was now back in school (again), and very busy with being thirty five and raising 2 babies. This, as you will soon find out, was more complicated than you might imagine. But Jim made me promise, that no matter what, we would write a book someday about our crazy family.

Now I’m fifty, and for the first time in my life, I feel like there might not be enough time to do all the things I wanted to do. I never became an astronaut…turns out flying gives me vertigo; not exactly conducive for circling the galaxy. I never climbed Mount Everest and it’s looking like that will never happen. But I watch every movie and documentary and read every book I can find on the subject. And I did finally climb a mountain once, and since I wasn't supposed to live beyond the age of 5, that was my Mount Everest experience. I did become a scientist, so 2 out of 3 wasn’t bad.

And with some good luck and Karma, I still have a shot at some pretty awesome experiences yet to discover. Jim died back in 1996, right after I graduated PA school. It was a devastating blow to me. He was my one. The one who understood all the craziness in my life; not just from my childhood, but what I was dealing with in the present. And his death sparked off a whole list of questions about my life I never even knew to ask.

But I’m good at keeping promises. I finally am writing the book about our crazy family. So this book is for you Jim. We are finally writing that book.