How does a developmental disability affect an individual throughout the course of life? What impact does the disability have on the individual's family? What strengths do families use to cope with these disabilities? What do they do that works? And, what doesn't work? These are the kinds of questions we have been asking individuals and families in our research over the past 15 years. This book was written to report their stories, and to honor these people who have shared their lives and their cries from the heart with us. It is both a positive book and a realistic book: full of love and grief and tenderness and anger and kindness and sorrow and courage. It is as real as the people who gave us the gift of their lives.

All of us repeatedly grieve, heal, and reinvent ourselves throughout our lives. Being aware of, and active in, this inherent aspect of our existence I believe to be a less painful and more satisfying way of living than blindly struggling with, or resisting, these natural processes.-John S. Campbell, M.D., author of "A Journey: Creative Grieving and Healing." "We all die, he seems to be telling us. What is far more important is that we live a meaningful life before that time comes.." "We all need to dig deep to find our own wisdom so we may understand what John is telling us."-Nikki DeFrain, M.S, and John DeFrain, Ph.D. from their Foreword.