The Council of Dads
Page 17
To those who saw the pain up close and kept coming back: Laura Benjamin, Karen Lehrman Bloch and Bradley Bloch, Susan Chumsky, Karen Essex, Lauren Schneider, and Teresa Tritch.
To those who share the journey: Raul Buelvas, Olivia Fox, and Todd Haimes.
Special thanks to Megan Brown, Karen Glimmerveen, Tim Hawkins, Soribel Holguin, Jazie Ingram, and Greg Takoudes.
I am grateful for the many people I work with who drew closer to us during this time: Alan Berger, Helen Churko, Susan Ellingwood, Craig Jacobson, Lynn Goldberg, Beth Middleworth, Brian Pike, Lucy Lepage and Carlton Sedgeley, Roger Triemstra, and Sally Willcox.
My friends and colleagues at HarperCollins expressed extraordinary commitment at the outset of this experience, and nearly every day along the way. I am forever appreciative of Brian Murray, Michael Morrison, and Liate Stehlik for their continued presence and support. Seale Ballenger, Lynn Grady, Tavia Kowalchuk, Shawn Nicholls, Sharyn Rosenblum, Mary Schuck, Danny Goldstein, and Nicole Chismar are treasured colleagues. In twenty years of writing books, I have never worked more closely or had a more trusted and valued partnership with an editor than I have with Henry Ferris.
A special hug for Lisa Gallagher, who believed from the very beginning.
All the Feilers and Rottenbergs were always within earshot and arm’s length, and willing to leave their own lives behind to help us cope with ours. I can only hope that the splatters of misery I sometimes spread along the way did not conceal the love I so profoundly experienced.
The six men who appear in this book help form the backbone of my life. In addition to the steady pulse of friendship they shared throughout this journey, they all welcomed my probing eye into the deepest secrets of their lives and allowed me to mine them for my girls. I vow in however many days I have left to try to reach to the standards of humanity, joy, and compassion they already embody for me and my children.
Linda Rottenberg is the beating heart that informs every word in these pages. She managed during this unimaginable ordeal to conceal her own fear just enough to allow herself to wipe away some of mine. I love discovering nearly every day the magical parts of her being that emerge in our daughters. And I am profoundly comforted that should my Council of Dads ever need to convene for its original purpose, she will guide them with her effortless grace.
Tybee and Eden: This book is for you. I dread the day you will read it, but I trust you know it’s true. And I hope that you will always remember the words I would sing to you before you went to sleep—“Daddy-Daddy loves you very, very…” and the word you would whisper back: “Much.”
For tips on creating your own Council of Dads or Council of Moms, to share your story and keep the conversation going, or to help find a cure for sarcomas and other rare cancers, please visit brucefeiler.com or councilofdads.com.
About the Author
BRUCE FEILER is the New York Times bestselling author of nine books, including Walking the Bible, Abraham, and America’s Prophet, as well as the host of the documentary series Walking the Bible on PBS. An award-winning author, journalist, and speaker, Feiler is a graduate of Yale and Cambridge universities. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, Linda Rottenberg, and their identical twin daughters.
www.brucefeiler.com
www.councilofdads.com
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ALSO BY BRUCE FEILER
America’s Prophet
Moses and the American Story
Where God Was Born
A Daring Adventure Through the Bible’s Greatest Stories
Abraham
A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths
Walking the Bible
A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses
Dreaming Out Loud
Garth Brooks, Wynonna Judd, Wade Hayes, and the Changing Face of Nashville
Under the Big Top
A Season with the Circus
Looking for Class
Days and Nights at Oxford and Cambridge
Learning to Bow
Inside the Heart of Japan
Walking the Bible
A Photographic Journey
Walking the Bible
An Illustrated Journey for Kids Through the Greatest Stories Ever Told
Credits
Jacket design by Mary Schuck
Copyright
THE COUNCIL OF DADS. Copyright © 2010 by Bruce Feiler. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Feiler, Bruce S.
The council of dads: my daughters, my illness, and the men who could be me / Bruce Feiler.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-06-177876-6
1. Feiler, Bruce S.—Health. 2. Bones—Cancer—Patients—New York—Biography. 3. Father figures. 4. Children of cancer patients. I. Title.
RC280.B6F45 2010
362.196’994710092—dc22
[B]
2009041487
EPub Edition © March 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-199238-4
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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