Dear Mom And Dad A Letter About Family Memory And The America We Once Knew

A remarkably poignant writer for our troubled times, Patti Davis writes about love, loss, and the power of redemption in this poetic letter to her long-gone parents. Written with dignity and grace in the form of a letter to her parents, Ronald and Nancy Reagan, Dear Mom and Dad is that surprisingly poignant work that succeeds not only as a memoir but as a moving account that will inspire readers to recall their own childhoods in a totally new light. Eager to retell the narrative of her own family and her coming-of-age, Patti Davis casts aside misperceptions that defined her in the past. Far from being the enfant terrible, Dear Mom and Dad reveals young Patti as a sensitive child, who was not able to be the public person her family demanded. Just as she re-examines her own role in an increasingly dysfunctional family drama, Davis casts an empathetic yet honest eye on her parents—on her father, the eternal lifeguard, who saved seventy-seven people, yet failed to create a coherent AIDS policy, and her mother, who never escaped her own tortured youth. What comes across are Davis’s burnished skills as a writer, something she always dreamed of becoming. Even as she unravels her mother’s highly edited persona, and her father’s loving but distant personality, Davis remains steadfast in her artistic expression, as she melds irony, comedy, and tragedy with dreamlike memories of an ever-present past. Dear Mom and Dad, with its account of her father’s Alzheimer's and her mother’s end-of-life struggles, becomes an account of forgiveness, reaching levels of redemption rarely found in contemporary memoirs.

When Dorothy Beane's husband, Ed, loses his job to the Great Depression, they move back to Dorothy's childhood home in Massachusetts. The story follows three generations of a New England family as they deal with life, loss, memory, and the ties that bind people together in good times and bad.

You will follow a portion of my life's journey as I traveled to reach the full potential God had for me because of being a fatherless daughter. I have allowed myself to be transparent through my circumstances and decisions so that others can see that no matter what life dishes out to you, anyone can overcome obstacles. God has shown a tremendous amount of grace and mercy towards me, and I am appreciative of where He has brought me from and absolutely excited about where He is taking me. I am no longer a victim of my circumstances but one who has overcame by the words of my testimony. I know that as long as I allow God to continue to lead me down the path He would have me go, I can't go wrong. Markeida L. Johnson has successfully been married for 21 years and have raised three sons. She has been in ministry for over 20 years and co-pastor a church with her husband since 2002. She and her husband, Gary Johnson, have a marriage ministry, 'No Air Between Us', as well as council couples for marriage preparedness and family values. She is currently attending college to obtain a degree in Psychology. She is the founder of a women's group called S.H.I.C. (SisterHood In Christ), under the umbrella of God's Women of Power-PMU. S.H.I.C. is inspired by her life experiences and spiritual wisdom to motivate others to overcome struggles. She is nicknamed 'the fire starter' by her fellow worshippers because she knows how to ignite the word of God in your life."

Ronald Reagan's political career and his status as a cultural icon have been observed from every angle, but his role as a father to his daughter has been seen only in the harsh light of Patti's well-publicized tensions with Nancy Reagan. But now Patti Davis has reconciled with her mother and the catalyst was Angels Don't Die. In fact, her parents were so touched by the book they have contributed introductory comments. Angels Don't Die is a moving tribute to Ronald Reagan's spiritual strength and offers an intimate portrait that will appeal to people everywhere who admire the Reagans as well as to anyone contending with the challenges of parent-child relationships. Putting aside past hurts and misunderstandings, Patti Davis writes lyrically of the lessons she learned from watching her father cope with the various crises in his life. She writes of his forgiveness of John Hinckley, Reagan's would-be assassin, and of his near-death experience following surgery. She reveals Ronald Reagan to be a simple, quietly heroic man whose faith in God has never wavered.

With the heartfelt prose of a loving daughter, Patti Davis provides a life raft for the caregivers of Alzheimer’s patients. “For the decade of my father’s illness, I felt as if I was floating in the deep end, tossed by waves, carried by currents, but not drowning,” writes Patti Davis in this searingly honest and deeply moving account of the challenges involved in taking care of someone stricken with Alzheimer’s. When her father, the fortieth president of the United States, announced his Alzheimer’s diagnosis in an address to the American public in 1994, the world had not yet begun speaking about this cruel, mysterious disease. Yet overnight, Ronald Reagan and his immediate family became the face of Alzheimer’s, and Davis, once content to keep her family at arm’s length, quickly moved across the country to be present during “the journey that would take [him] into the sunset of [his] life.” Empowered by all she learned from caring for her father—about the nature of the illness, but also about the loss of a parent—Davis founded a support group for the family members and friends of Alzheimer’s patients. Along with a medically trained cofacilitator, she met with hundreds of exhausted and devastated attendees to talk through their pain and confusion. While Davis was aware that her own circumstances were uniquely fortunate, she knew there were universal truths about dementia, and even surprising gifts to be found in a long goodbye. With Floating in the Deep End, Davis draws on a welter of experiences to provide a singular account of battling Alzheimer’s. Eloquently woven with personal anecdotes and helpful advice tailored specifically for the overlooked caregiver, this essential guide covers every potential stage of the disease from the initial diagnosis through the ultimate passing and beyond. Including such tips as how to keep a loved one hygienic, and careful responses for when they drift to a time gone by, Davis always stresses the emotional milestones that come with slow-burning grief. Along the way, Davis shares how her own fractured family came together. With unflinching candor, she recalls when her mother, Nancy, who for decades could not show her children compassion or vulnerability, suddenly broke down in her arms. Davis also offers tender moments in which her father, a fabled movie star whom she always longed to know better, revealed his true self—always kind, even when he couldn’t recognize his own daughter. An inherently wise work that promises to become a classic, Floating in the Deep End ultimately provides hope to struggling families while elegantly illuminating the fragile human condition.

“A wonderful glance at joyful, funny, and meaningful incidents that make a family close, loving, and respectful. . . . Needs to be read by every parent.” —Dr. Shirley Cothran Barret, speaker, author, and Miss America, 1975 This uplifting collection of Zig Ziglar’s personal letters paints a vivid portrait of a family in which love abounds-and serves as the foundation of every relationship. These letters reflect the innermost thoughts and feelings of a loving husband and devoted father who is totally committed to the physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being of his family. Ziglar offers valuable counsel on many of the dangers that face the contemporary family: drugs, alcohol, a sexually free society, and widespread acceptance of mediocrity. Spiritual strength and a commitment to God's will, Ziglar believes, are the surest methods of combating these social ills.

BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A novel that follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he never much thought about—until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance: one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single setting, The Sense of an Ending has the psychological and emotional depth and sophistication of Henry James at his best, and is a stunning achievement in Julian Barnes's oeuvre. Tony Webster thought he left his past behind as he built a life for himself, and his career has provided him with a secure retirement and an amicable relationship with his ex-wife and daughter, who now has a family of her own. But when he is presented with a mysterious legacy, he is forced to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.

Through the diary of 10-year-old Victoria Cope, we learn about the arrival of ragged Mary Anna, one of the thousands of impoverished British children who were sent to Canada at the beginning of the century. Mary Anna joins the Cope family as a servant and is treated well, but she has to cope with the initial apprehension of the family members and the loss of her brother, Jasper, who was placed with another family. Victoria vows to help Mary Anna find her brother, so they can be a family once again.