ABOUT THE BOOK

The years pass, as they always do. Here’s what worried me, and was the driving force behind these books: there will be new generations of our family that never knew Ma or Dad. No memories of them at all. Eventually, we would all just be pictures hanging on a wall or on a shelf somewhere.

I envisioned a time in the future where someone might see a picture of Ma and ask, “So, who’s that?”

And the answer might be, “Well that’s my great, great, grandmother, Rita Coughlin. Don’t really know anything about her, but people say she was nice.”

I didn’t like the idea of that. I had this notion of leaving some sort of record behind. Kind of like sales people have those little brochures that they give you before they leave. I think they call them leave behinds—I really don’t know what they call them, but let’s go with that.

If I left behind a book or two of stories, that changes the conversation to “Her? That’s my great, great, grandmother, Rita Coughlin. Let me tell you a story about her. She was a remarkable woman. A force of nature.”

Now I did like the idea of that.

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