B. J. Dana Livres

They were only eleven and fourteen years old when their mother died. My two granddaughters Tara and Jaime felt abandoned and were angry at my daughter, Terry, when she died of an inoperable tumor at age forty. It was important that I let them know every detail of how their lovely, vivacious mother endured seven long months of pain, and how her body became grotesquely swollen and filled with tumors from her neck down to her legs. They also had to know how hard she had fought during those seven months to survive, without ever losing her sense of humor or love for her family. She wanted so much to survive so she would be able to see her girls grow up into womanhood. The cancer, however, was very rare and ugly and she lost her battle. Since I was with her, every step of the way, I was the only one who could relate the details of the anguish and pain she endured those seven months and finally the agony of separating herself from her family to seek her peace. It tore me apart to put all the notes together into a book. Many nights I had to stop because I couldn't see through the tears, but it had to be done so my granddaughters would know and remember. This book is my tribute to my brave, lovely daughter, Terry.

The stories in this book are fiction. Each story is built around an actual incident. The seeds of compassion, kindness, and accepted social graces that are planted in these stories can havea positive influence on children. It is extraordinarily fulfilling to know that these stories may have impact on the development of quality character in young minds.

Wards of the Court is the painful memoirs of the arduously intense journey of five brothers survival as wards of the court. Coming from a broken family beginning in the early 1950s and continuing through the late 60s and early 70s, Ivan Thompson and his four siblings are faced with many life defining situations of survival from dealing with homeless, near starvation, physical abuse and mental cruelties that have been known to not only permanently scar a young child's personality & soul, but also could result in turning that child or those children onto a path of hopelessness and one of no return. The Thompson brothers wage one continuing gallant battle of survival against tremendous odds while holding on to the one thing that gives them the strength to survive another day-and that is their belief that God would one day allow them to see a better day.