This is the story of one woman's courageous struggle against the relentless encroachment of darkness. Helen Harris, after a childhood marked by unplanned clumsiness, skinned knees, and being known as the class klutz, discovered she was a victim of retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a disease causing progressive blindness and having no known cure. Devastated by this prognosis of ever-growing darkness, this brave and stoic young girl determined nonetheless to make the most of her future.

She was galvanized to furious activity, driven by anger at the abysmal absence of knowledge of RP in the medical community and, in fact, this world. But what could one woman do? Plenty. For someone with no experience in business, public relations, volunteerism, or recruitment, Helen Harris undertook to master them all. One lone woman with the mission to move the mountains of ignorance about a disease even Helen had never heard about, all the while trying to cope with the ever-growing darkness surrounding her and her sons. She came to know that RP was one of a family of related genetic diseases, one more terrifying than the other. These diseases, being of genetic origin, often strike multiple siblings in a family.

This book will lead you through Helen's amazing success in recruiting celebrities to their cause and shedding light into the darkness of RP, involving the medical world in the fight, and garnering support from the political world up to and including a president of the United States. Information on all the new technology that has been developed since Helen's journey began are enclosed within the pages of the book.

One day I was a happy mother of three with a great husband, wonderful job, and looking toward the future. The next, I was a devastated zombie who was hardly able to talk in complete sentences. My mother had been murdered. As a counselor and writer, I began to journal to try to help myself. After several years, these were packed away, but never forgotten. As the years went by, I often found myself counseling others who were going through the same type of grief. I pulled out my journals to see if there was anything in my writing that might possibly help others. It was then I realized I could put my words in a book and write about the techniques I learned to get me through each of my stages of grief. My Mother Was Murdered: A Survival Story was born. It is my hope that my words can somehow help other wounded souls through their own personal journey. My heart holds a lot of love and I am sending it out to all of you, my fellow survivors. God Bless, Pamala

What do Richard Branson, Quincy Jones, Yvon Chouinard, David E. Stewart, Elon Musk, Frank Nuovo, John Paul DeJoria and Steve Jobs have in common with Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo da Vinci, Teddy Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson and Sir Isaac Newton? They all share the 12 Essential Traits of the Renaissance Man. BEYOND GENIUS travels through history to determine the 12 essential traits that define a Renaissance Man, then applies those attributes to determine some of the Renaissance Men of today. We tell their stories of determination and perseverance, their expertise in a variety of fields, their insatiable curiosity, the infusion of their wisdom and creativity into our culture. We explore the making of a Renaissance Man and the deep connection these men have to advancements in the sciences, the arts and our way of being. Scott Griffiths & Eric Elfman, and their team, have put more than 1,000 hours of research into studying the history of the Renaissance Man, identifying common attributes that are constant throughout time, and identifying a select group today's most successful Renaissance Men. By understanding these traits, identifying and developing them, the innerRenaissance Man can be unleashed in more men for the betterment of the world.